Hoteliers lament Klang Valley's scheduled water cut just as industry is picking up

PETALING JAYA: The scheduled water cut in the Klang Valley from Oct 13 to 16 will cause a hefty and unnecessary cost to the hotel industry, says the Malaysian Association of Hotel Owners (Maho).

Its executive director Shaharuddin M. Saaid said hoteliers have expressed their displeasure and disapproval that it is being undertaken at this period when hotels and tourism have just restarted and begun to enjoy some business.

"Not only it causes much inconvenience to hotels in serving their guests but it costs unnecessary increase in the cost of operation of hotels," he said in a statement on Saturday (Oct 9).

Shaharuddin also questioned why the water cut was not done when hotels were not allowed to operate during the long closure due to the movement control order.

"A 200-300 room hotel in the city reported that it cost them RM3,500 for a water tank lorry and they would need to rent 10 lorries.

"This is a hefty cost to hotels especially when they had no business and revenue for a long period of time.

"Needless to say that it is very inconsiderate, not business-friendly of Air Selangor to do this and the timing is indeed very bad," he added.

Selangor Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Amirudin Shari had said earlier that the water cut was inevitable and required to prevent abrupt water interruption from occurring in the near future.

He explained that the maintenance work on Phase 1 of the Sungai Selangor Water Treatment Plant was aimed at overcoming the problem afflicting the water supply in the state.

Three factors behind water disruption have been identified and they were insufficient raw water supply, disruption at water treatment plants and contamination or broken pipes caused by third parties, said the Selangor MB.