DAP MP Yeo said that even if the contentious Langat 2 water treatment plant were to be completed now, it would not resolve water shortages at Sungai Selangor. — file picture

KUALA LUMPUR, April 30 — Selangor’s water shortage is due to climate change and not because of an unexpected pick-up in demand, Yeo Bee Yin, member of the Selangor state assembly for Damansara Utama said today, rejecting minister Khairy Jamaluddin’s widely reported claims.

Yeo said that even if the contentious Langat 2 water treatment plant were to be completed now, it would not resolve water shortages at Sungai Selangor that supplies 60 per cent of Klang Valley’s water, due to a fragmented water distribution network built by water concessionaire Syabas.

“Khairy has conveniently ignored the fact that the water distribution network in Klang Valley is actually not interconnected due to years of underinvestment of piping systems by Syabas,” Yeo said in a statement today.

“Langat 2 is geographically far away from Sungai Selangor. With the current fragmented water grid, even if Langat 2 is completed now, Syabas will not be able to distribute the water to the users affected by water shortages at Sungai Selangor,” she added.

Khairy wrote in several local dailies yesterday that if the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) Selangor government had approved the construction of Langat 2 in 2009, Selangor’s water supply would have been secured.

The Langat 2 water treatment plant in Kuala Langat is necessary to complete a water transfer project between Pahang and Selangor.

Putrajaya’s 2010 warning of a water crisis by 2014 if water resources are not managed well appeared not to have been heeded, Khairy said.

But Yeo stressed that the current water shortage in Selangor was caused by changing rain patterns as a result of climate change and not the growth in demand that Putrajaya had predicted.

Khairy criticised Selangor’s refusal to increase water tariffs, which he said was necessary to allow water companies to use the additional revenue to upgrade infrastructure and reduce water supply lost en route to the end consumer.

“I would like to remind Khairy that even without the water tariff increment, Selangor water tariff is already the second highest in the country,” she said, adding that Syabas hasn’t been able to reduce water wastages for “ none other than the misuse of people’s money.”

Khairy further said that the federal government was forced to intervene and take over the Selangor water concessionaires’ RM6.2 billion bonds and pump in RM400 million for operations and maintenance, as Selangor “effectively held the public at ransom”.

For her part, Yeo said despite the federal government’s interventions Syabas’ distribution network is as fragmented with wastage of water still at levels they were in 2007.

The minister also called the recent memorandum of understanding signed in February between Putrajaya and Selangor on the restructuring of the state’s water industry a “sweet deal” for the PR state government, as the federal government would provide RM9.65 billion to acquire the water firms in Selangor.

The agreement stated that the Selangor government would take over the four water concessionaires operating in the state — Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor Bhd (Syabas), Puncak Niaga Sdn Bhd (PNSB), Konsortium Abbas Sdn Bhd (ABBAS) and Syarikat Pengeluar Air Selangor Holdings Bhd (Splash).

“He has ignored yet another important fact that under the original national water restructuring plan, the federal government is to buy over the water assets from the states and concessionaires. It has been done in Negri Sembilan, Perlis and Johor. Just that in Selangor, we requested for the operation of water assets to be under Selangor GLC Kumpulan Darul Ehsan Berhad (KDEB) instead of Federal GLC Pengurusan Aset Air Berhad (PAAB),” said Yeo in response.

Yeo also pointed out that Putrajaya was now willing to consider invoking Section 114 of the Water Services Industry Act to allow the forced acquisition of the water concessionaires.

“So now, who is to be blamed for the delay of water restructuring?” Yeo asked.

Selangor, which currently supplies water to Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya, enforced water rationing over the past two months after water levels at the Sungai Selangor dam reached dangerously low levels due to a prolonged drought.

Khalid said last Friday that Selangor may stop water rationing if the reserves at Sungai Selangor continue increasing.