Sabah Water Dept pushing hard to meet UMS’ demands, says Shahelmey

KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Water Department is pushing hard to provide sufficient water to Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) where frustrated students protested during a visit by the Higher Education Minister on Monday.

Deputy Chief Minister III Datuk Shahelmey Yahya said records showed that there was an increase in demand for water at UMS campus here in December.

He said based on Sabah Water Department records, the university was supplied with 2.7MLD (million liters daily) to meet their demand of 2.98MLD.

However, he said that UMS’ demand had increased to 5 MLD in December even before the completion of the second phase of Telibong 2 project aimed at boosting water supplies to Kota Kinabalu's northern areas.

Shahelmey said that in the event of water shortage, the department usually tops up the supply by sending water tankers to UMS.

Shahelmey, who is Works Minister, said the water supply issue should have been overcome with the completion of the second phase of the Telibong 2 project which was commissioned in early December last year.

However, he said some piping works still needed to be completed in order for the additional volume of treated water from Telibong 2 to be linked and released into the distribution network.

"All efforts are being done to ensure the piping is completed before the end of January to ease the pressing issue of water shortage faced currently," he said when contacted.

On the other hand, he said the department continuously faced the challenge of water theft through illegal connections and vandalism on its pipe network and system which contributed to water shortage problems.

On Monday (Jan 8), students at UMS carried placards highlighting their water woes during a visit by Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abd Kadir. He then approved another RM2mil allocation to overcome the problem.

Earlier Tuesday (Jan 9), Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim asked the relevant agencies to immediately look into what happened to the RM3mil allocation provided to the university last year to ease water woes.

Shahelmey said the RM3mil allocation was to UMS and not the state.

It is learned that the UMS management is expected to issue a statement on the matter.

The Prime Minister's allocation was supposed to be for the funding of the university's ongoing project to construct bore wells that include construction of a pipeline and water treatment system among others within the campus.

The university had been undertaking the project since 2021.