Holiday fund for water woes

Personal catchment: Some of the tanks Sanis (inset) had to purchase so he could store more water at his house.

KOTA KINABALU: Sanis Baidis had always wanted to go on a vacation with his wife ever since he retired in 2008, but he kept postponing his plans in order to save up by taking on some small jobs.

Now instead of using his hard-earned savings to whisk his wife away, Sanis, 62, is depleting his funds to have his home supplied with treated water.

His troubles began during the Covid-19 pandemic when his housing area, the Kota Kinabalu Industrial Park (KKIP) V12 resettlement scheme in Bukit Payung, Tuaran, some 30km from here began experiencing low water pressure.

When they first moved in in 2010, it was bearable, Sanis said.

“But as more people moved here the pressure dropped to dismal levels.

“Those staying in low-lying areas can still get some water but where I’m at, which is only midway, the supply is unstable.

“So, people like me have had to either depend on the Water Department to send their tankers or buy from a middleman,” said Sanis, who also has to purchase bottled drinking water.

“The water we buy from the middleman is only for bathing and cleaning and not for consumption.

“I have roughly spent about RM10,000, (which consists of) some RM5,000 to buy water from the middleman and over RM4,000 for bottled drinking water.

“That is not even counting the number of water tanks I had to buy so I could store water,” he added.

“I have to be careful with whatever savings I have now as my spending is dictated by this water supply situation.”

The middleman sold water at two prices. Water delivered by four-wheel drive cost RM30 per trip for about 400 litres. For 1,000 litres, residents would have to pay RM60 per trip as the load came by lorry.

“But not many can afford to buy from the middleman so they have to wait on the Water Department lorry,” he said.

He said the residents had some respite when Sepanggar MP Mustapha Sakmud instructed a batch of lorries to send water to the housing area.

“The 400 litres (from the middleman), in addition to some water we can get from the tap, can last us for over a week if we are really careful with our usage,” said Sanis, who lives with his family of five.

“This is really troublesome but what makes it worse is that we are still paying for the utility bill despite not getting consistent water supply.”

As such, he hoped the state government will rectify the issue as soon as possible, especially since it received a RM320.25mil allocation from Putrajaya.

“Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim held talks with Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor on the water issue, so we hope this will result in improvement to the water supply system.

Hajiji had said that he was confident the assistance would help the state implement short-term plans to solve the state’s water woes.

He said plans would involve the implementation of six programmes encompassing 20 state-wide projects that includes nine projects under district plans for Kota Kinabalu, Tuaran, Putatan, Papar, Beaufort, Keningau, Tawau, Lahad Datu, and Sandakan.