SHAH ALAM, 3 Jan: The action of Selangor Water Supply Company (Syabas) in pointing their finger towards the Selangor Government to conceal the company’s failure in supplying water to consumers in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur is very irresponsible.
Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim said that SYABAS should maintain all water distribution assets as embodied in the Concession Agreement which was signed between the Federal Government , the Selangor Government and the company.
“Since January 1, 2005, all water distribution assets and facilities owned by the Selangor Government has been handed over to be fully managed by SYABAS, including the Wangsa Maju Pump House.
“Therefore, there is no reason for SYABAS to point fingers at the State Government,” said Abdul Khalid in a press statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office Press Secretariat.
There are five units of Pump Houses in Wangsa Maju and investigations have revealed that water supply disruptions that have hit Gombak and Kuala Lumpur is due to the failure of the five pumps.
The investigations was carried out by the Selangor Water Supply Monitoring Committee last January 2.
“The results from the visit to the Wangsa Maju Pump Houses by the committee on January 2 through observation from log books of the pump operations for 2012, it was found that the second pump has been damaged for over a year and has never been repaired,” said Abdul Khalid.
The Chief Minister said that the results of the investigation committee has concluded that Syabas:
*failed to maintain water supply assets and facilities that are under their control form January 1, 2005, as per the concession agreement
*failed to identify the damage of pumps available at the Pump Houses and this failure caused greater damage that caused the disruption of water supply to users
*failed to take immediate action in repairing damages to the pumps
*failed to inform the actual situation of the occurrences of damages to the Selangor Government
Instead, AbdulKhalid said that Syabas uses the excuse of shortage of water, causing panic among consumers.
“This time, water outages is the culmination of a series SYABAS failures in fulfilling their responsibilities to users as set in the fourth Concession Agreement.
“Hence, the Selangor Government is urging the Federal Government to allow the restructuring of the water industry to resume according to the Water Services Industry Act 2006 (WSIA),” Abdul Khalid said.