Recent government statements admit not once, but twice, that there is no water crisis in Selangor; proof that the problem is being “manufactured”, said Klang MP Charles Santiago.

He was commenting on the Energy, Green Technology and Water Ministry’s statement yesterday over the open tender for the Langat 2 water treatment plant, reported in The Star today.

NONE “The statement confirms my worst fears that the water crisis was manufactured to secure the Langat 2 plant worth billions,” Santiago (right) told Malaysiakini .

He pointed out that it is the second time this week since Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s comment that the alleged water crisis is non-existent.

“Thus both the DPM and the (energy) minister acknowledge that there is no crisis, but have manipulated (circumstances to create) the panic situation.

“The unfolding drama appears to be similar to the one in the US, whereby utility giant Enron had manufactured an energy crisis in the state of California to push for higher tariffs and contracts.

“The question that arises is, should Syabas and the Energy Ministry be held legally culpable for manufacturing a crisis and creating a panic in the state of Selangor?” said Santiago.

Gov’t denies cronyism

The Star today reported that, “In a statement, the ministry stressed that although there was no need for water rationing now, it did not mean there would not be a water crisis in 2014.”

“The federal government has always been consistent in its stand that there will be a crisis in 2014 as the Selangor government has refused to approve the construction of the Langat 2 water treatment plant to ensure its completion by 2014.

azlan “It is on this basis that the federal government approved a RM606mil allocation to implement mitigation projects to avoid a water crisis by 2014,” it reported the ministry as saying.

Santiago said the report “further strengthens the suspicion that there is no water crisis, but one that was manufactured by Syabas and the ministry to push for Langat 2".

On Monday, Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin admitted that “there is no need for rationing at this time”.

This contradicts Syabas chief Ruslan Hassan who on July 14 said that water rationing for the state was necessary due to a “worsening water crisis”.

NGOs have served Syabas a memorandum giving it till Aug 7 to make a full public disclosure of technical details of its operations to back the alleged water crisis.

Meanwhile, the ministry in its statement added that the open tender proved that the Langat 2 project was not meant to benefit the "cronies", and invited Selangor government's subsidiaries to join the bidding.