Selangor MB: Federal gov't should support us, not Syabas

The federal government should support Selangor's water restructuring exercise instead of giving state water concessionaire Syabas RM120 million in financial aid, said Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim.

He said the water restructuring exercise would give a wholesome solution to the state's water issues, whereas Syabas has failed to manage the state's water resources properly.

"History has shown that although Syabas had received a soft loan from the federal government, but the company that has received a 30-year concession to manage water in the Klang Valley, still failed to reduce the percentage of non-revenue water (NRW), which now stands at 33 percent," he said in a statement today.

He was responding to Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's speech yesterday, who boasted that he approved an RM120 millionallocation on top of the existing RM606 million, to help relieve the state's water issues.

However, he added that it would be easier to solve the problem if BN takes over the Pakatan Rakyat-led state in the next general election.

Khalid (right) replied that Najib's extra allocation proves that the federal government is not interested in helping the state take over Syabas.

He had previously accused the federal government of stalling the takeover bid through the Finance Ministry'sgolden share in the concessionaire.

Khalid pointed out that under the Water Privatisation Agreement signed between Syabas, the state government, and the federal government in 2004, Syabas needs to reduce NRW to 19.98 percent by 2011.

However, he said it failed to do this despite spending some RM1.17 billion, which he said is far above what was agreed upon. The allowed expenditure is not stated in the press statement.

Although Syabas' failure is often blamed on the state government's move to freeze its capital expenditure (Capex) except for emergency works, Khalid said this was not the case.

"The failure to reduce NRW to 19.98 percent as agreed in the concession agreement is not due to the lack of funds, but Syabas' inability to plan and execute NRW reduction programs effectively," he said.

This resulted in a loss of 663 million litres of water a day, he said, which is enough to meet demand up to 2017.