Ranhill SAJ chief executive officer Nor Ifuan Md Nor (pic) said most of the capex was for replacing underground pipes, some of which were laid after the country’s Independence.
JOHOR BARU: Ranhill SAJ Sdn Bhd, which is a subsidiary of Ranhill Utilities Bhd
, is allocating about RM2bil in capital expenditure (capex) for five years beginning since 2018, to improve its water operations in Johor.
Ranhill SAJ chief executive officer Nor Ifuan Md Nor said most of the capex was for replacing underground pipes, some of which were laid after the country’s Independence.
“Replacing the old underground pipes will help to reduce our non-revenue water (NRW), ’’ he told reporters after handing over zakat (tithes) to four asnaf (eligible recipients) from the zakat payments this year at its headquarters here.
Nor Ifuan said apart from replacing the pipes, the budget would be utilised for improving the distribution system, assets replacement and related infrastructure.
“Johor records about 26.8% NRW, and our water leakages is the lowest in the country per kilometre, ’’ he said.
Nor Ifuan said the on-going exercise to replace the pipes involved replacing some 7,000km of asbestos cement pipes which were laid more than 40 years ago.
He said replacing the pipes would help to improve treated water distribution in Johor, adding there were over 22,917km water pipes of other materials which needed to be replaced.
Nor Ifuan said water demand in Johor, especially within Iskandar Malaysia, would be on the upward trend in the coming years in tandem with industrial, property and trade activities.
Ranhill SAJ is an integrated water provider in Johor involved in water treatment process and distribution to consumers with 2,026 million litres capacity daily.
It operates 44 water treatment plants with 689 reservoirs supplying water to some 3.7 million consumers in the state with 1.2 million accounts of which 1.05 million are domestic users.
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