SHAH ALAM, 23 JAN: The Selangor Water Supply Company (Syabas – Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor) was found to have failed to use the Capital Expenditure (Capex) which was given by the State Government for several development projects as outlined previously by the company.
Among them, Syabas was found to have failed to implement the upgrading project of the Bernam River Headwork (BRH) water treatment plant with the original capacity of 40.6 Million Litres Per Day (MLD) to 65.5 MLD in 2008 at a cost of RM45 million.
Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim said that till today, the plant is only able to channel 25 MLD effectively to consumers due to reasons of shortcomings and failures in planning by Syabas.
In fact, in 2010, Syabas had again applied for funding of RM15 million to undertake the construction of two booster pump stations to ensure channelling of water from the BRH Plant which was at the capacity of 65.5 MLD.
“Syabas was also found to have failed in increasing the Rasa Water Treatment Plant (WTP) distribution capacity where Syabas stated that the RM90 million project could channel 180MLD of water to Bukit Beruntung and the areas surrounding it.
“However, after the completion of the project, it failed to channel as much water as planned. As a result, only 90 to 100 MLD could be used to supply water to Bukit Beruntung, Bukit Sentosa, Sungai Buaya and parts of Rawang at the moment.
“The in-comprehensive planning by Syabas resulted in the company proposing once again to build a booster pump system at Kolam Panca Rasmi and several existing main connections with the cost of RM81 million,” he said at a news conference at the State Secretariat Building today.
He added that Syabas failed to maintain water assets through the Concession Agreement signed in 2004, where the concessionaire was found to have not conducted regular maintenance to the Variable Speed Drive (VSD) system at the Wangsa Maju Pump House since 2008.
In addition, the concession company also failed to take advantage of the existing system to ensure that the system operates properly without any water supply disruptions as happened lately.
“When Syabas became aware of the situation at the Wangsa Maju Pump House, Syabas should have looked at alternatives available to reduce the burden, among them would be to implement a redistribution system using the alternative distribution system or the ‘AU3 Booster’ booster pump house to reduce the burden at the Wangsa Maju Pump House.
“The AU3 Booster pump house has not been used by Syabas since 2004 and was only reactivated on 30 December 2012. The question is why did Syabas not use the pump house as an effort to over the problems that occurred? Instead, Syabas straight away pointed their finger at the State Government,” he added.