I
am not going to underestimate the intelligence of Selangor people. They
know the hidden political agenda in the ongoing water crisis. The DPM
has said that water rationing is not necessary yet. It was and is never
necessary; the dams are filled with water. Rainfall is plenty.
The
water shortage issue is a fabricated one. The people know it’s a
political ploy to justify what’s next? The what's next will be the
continuous barrage against the state government for ignoring the welfare
of the people. What’s next will be the justification to build another
multibillion Ringgit water treatment plant perhaps already booked for by
Syabas Satellite Company.
You
are asking people to rise up against a government with a much better
track record than all the states run by UMNO/BN leaders. This is the
government that gives free water to a certain level. This is also a
government that wants to stop the increase in water tariffs on an
essential product. Water
should have been a natural monopoly not some business allocated to a
political crony. This is also the government that wants to reduce the
astronomical salary of the person who heads Syabas but who hasn’t shown
competence in managing a water supply and treatment company.
Why
should Selangor people support UMNO/BN for the manner they proposed to
solve the problem? Why should Selangor people elect a government that
wants to increase water tariffs by up to 75% so that the selected few
Malays will get richer?
Syabas
is 70% owned by Puncak Niaga. The other two components in Syabas were
given rights to share in fleecing people over the supply of water. The
chairman of Syabas pays himself RM 400k/month and he was the person who
buys pipes for Syabas from his own company.
Yes,
why should we support a government that wants to increase water
tariffs? Why should we want to support a government that seems to waste
no time in justifying the construction of the Langat 2 dam which will
costs RM 8 over billion?
This
Langat 2 project- what is it? Is it a logrolling project where the main
proponent behind the project wants to secure political allegiance in
Selangor? Let’s say it’s the DPM who is the main proponent to have the
Langat 2 Dam up and about. If he does that, then he is likely to secure
the allegiance of UMNO warlords in Selangor, with whose support he can
mount a challenge to kick out wimpy Najib.
Why should Selangor people rally behind Syabas which hasn’t done anything to correct its 32% non-water revenue losses?
The
syabas chairman pays himself over RM 400k a month, yet he couldn’t
rectify the NRW losses. If Langat 2 comes about, will his pay gets
doubled?
But
why are you envious that a Malay gets that big salary? Chinese and
others get that salary, you keep quite. That would be the typical
knee-jerk response from UMNO supporters who see this issue from the
perspectives of race–balancing wealth game. This is not a racial issue.
The issue here is UMNO supports the inefficient, the incompetent and the
corrupt and its cronies. We just don’t want such a government bossing
us anymore.
The people complaining about
this are probably Malays themselves. Why is it difficult for UMNO to
accept that what it does, how it manages the country is objected to by
Malays? If the entire population of Malaysia were Malay, then this would
be a case of the oppressed rising in revolt against the oppressor. The
downtrodden proletariat versus the bourgeois capitalists. So, imagine
this to be issue confronting one people-Malaysians. Malaysians find the
water issue objectionable and unconscionable. Only a lunatic will use
water as a political weapon on its own people.
What
has Syabas not tell the people of Malaysia? It hasn’t told the people
that it hasn’t done anything to rectify the 32% non-revenue water
losses. Over
the years, it has managed to only treat 70% of the water that goes into
the water treatment plant. It is clealy incompetent yet it wants more
money from the government of the state.
The
other part of NRW is the amount of water losses that are incurred in
leaky pipes, and other infrastructure support that would ensure
efficient water supply to consumers. Has Syabas done enough to replace
pipes and prevent distributive losses?
We have not been told that Syabas has failed miserably to efficiently convert enough of that raw water into potable water.
Potable water is water fit to run in our taps at home. The technical
term for the amount of raw water that is wasted due to inefficiencies in
the water treatment plant is called “non-revenue water” or NRW. 32% of
water produced by Syabas is wasted. A staggering one-third of the raw
water that enters a Syabas water treatment plant goes entirely to waste.
How
does this wonderful record compare with what goes on in other
countries? In Bangladesh, the NRW is 29 percent. NRW in one of the
poorest country in the world is 29% and in Malaysia which is richer and
wants to be 1st world
country by 2020, the NRW is 32%. In the Philippines, Eastern Manila
managed to bring down its NRW from 63 percent in 1997 to 11 percent in
2010.
Developed
nations have even lower levels of NRW – Germany’s NRW is only 7%, while
the Netherlands and Denmark have achieved NRW levels of 6%. But then,
our leaders have a penchant of comparing our country to nations like
Zimbabwe, Kampuchea, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Burma etc. we are much better
than these countries say our leaders. SPM holders compare themselves to
SRP holders but not STP holders. MCE against LCE but never HSC holders.
Singapore, the much maligned little red dot down south has an NRW level
of 5%.
Under Syabas’ stellar management whose chairman gets paid
over RM 400k a month, it manages to waste six times more water than
Singapore. How much does Singapore pay its water supply company CEO?
Syabas, Syabas, well done!
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