GRS govt focused on resolving decades-old water problem, says Malakun

KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah government is on the right track to resolve Sabah's perennial water problems, says Parti Gagasan Rakyat Sabah (Gagasan Rakyat) Moyog division chief Datuk Ceaser Mandela Malakun (pic).

He said the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) government under Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor over the last three years has focused on taking short and long-term measures to overcome the severe water supply problems faced by consumers.

Malakun said that the water supply problems in the state did not appear overnight but accumulated over the last two decades due to poor management coupled with serious issues of integrity breaches over the past years.

"Over the last three years, the current state government administration has taken actions to resolve the water problems.

"These include, the project to increase the capacity of the Telibong II Water Treatment Plant from 80 million litres per day (MLD) to 160MLD which involves putting in place pipelines and storage tanks to cope with the higher population growth and rapid development in Sabah's northern areas," he said Saturday (March 9).

The state government was serious about solving the state's water issue by replacing main pipelines, combating water theft (Non-Revenue Water, and upgrading water treatment plants to accommodate more water supply.

"The state has also put in place the integrity plan and anti-corruption plan in the Sabah State Water Department to avoid the issue of governance misconduct as happened before," said Malakun, who is the Principal Private Secretary to the Chief Minister

Malakun said that certain parties were exploiting and manipulating the water issues without looking at the facts of actual work being done.

"For example, in the March 6 notice issued by the Sabah Water Department on water disruption for 10 days in the Kota Kinabalu area, the notice was misinterpreted by certain irresponsible parties.

"The notice was for maintenance work at Media Filter No 3 (189 MLD to 187 MLD ) at the Moyog treatment plant, and if the work is not carried out could cause critical water problems in the future, even (private water producer) Jetama had committed to replace the lost of water supply through Kesigui water treatment plant," he said.

"The state government needs to be given space to resolve the problems it inherited from the indifference of previous state governments," he added

He said the federal government had provided RM300mil last year, as well as approved four new projects worth RM200mil under the Fourth Rolling Plan of the 12th Malaysia Plan (RMK) for the short-term solution to water supply issues in the state of Sabah.

He said that another RM100mil additional allocation had been requested from the Federal Government.