Malaysia to propose new water price mechanism to Singapore

INTERVIEW | Putrajaya plans to propose a new price mechanism for the raw water supplied to Singapore, according to Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah.

"We will propose a new price mechanism in the near future," he said in a group interview at Wisma Putra last Saturday.

"Singapore is still reluctant to discuss the price, but we will continue to offer a new price mechanism." 

Negotiations with Singapore began in January, and are headed by Attorney-General Tommy Thomas and his Singaporean counterpart Lucien Wong.

The water agreement cropped up in the middle of last year when Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said the price at which raw water is sold to Singapore "did not make sense," and that he planned to negotiate a review of the terms.

The agreement, which expires in 2061, gives Singapore the right to source 250 million gallons a day of raw water from Sungai Johor.

Singapore pays three sen per 1,000 gallons of raw water, and sells treated water back to Johor at 50 sen per thousand gallons.

Another of Malaysia's most pressing priorities at present is the traffic congestion along the Johor-Singapore Causeway, Saifuddin said.

He explained that a special cabinet committee chaired by the prime minister discussed the issue last week and some decisions have been made, such as adding more officers to the Immigration and Customs checkpoints.

“It is also very important that we repair the equipment. If we can repair the equipment, specifically those involving ICT, such as scanning... then we can speed up the process,” he said.

The committee is also looking into adding more lanes to the causeway, Saifuddin said, though there are concerns that this will only contribute to a bottleneck further up the road.

The minister also pointed out that these changes are only being carried out on this side of the straits, though he hopes that Singapore is also looking to mitigate congestion. - Mkini