Former exco member Ronnie Liu has blamed Selangor MB Abdul Khalid Ibrahim for the recent water cuts for not spending on solutions to the state's water woes.

In a statement today, Selangor DAP publicity secretary Ronnie Liu ( below, right ) said the previous executive committee had proposed ways to solve Selangor's water shortage.

He said the state government’s three billion in reserves is meaningless if Khalid is unwilling to spend some of it on the proposals to solve the state's water supply problems.

“In fact, during the (previous term's) Selangor executive council meetings, we had discussed various ways of handling the water crisis, but the MB who has been well-informed about the issue had refused to act.

“Why he did not want to resolve the problem then? We could assume he did not want to spend money on the problem,” said Liu.

Khalid, he said, has thus failed on his promise to end water rationing in the state, as shown in this month's water cuts affecting over 750 thousands households.

“The dry season has yet to come. I could not imagine if El-Nino hits us with severe drought, would the Selangor people and factories not be able to use water and continue production?” he added.

Comprehensive study needed

Last week the concessionaire Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor Sdn Bhd (Syabas) explained several areas in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur were hit by water cuts due to low water pressure .

The areas affected are Gombak, Kuala Lumpur, Petaling Jaya, Klang, Shah Alam and Ulu Langat.

Liu said such unpredicted water cuts were worse than the water rationing plans earlier this year as the people were caught by surprise.

“As the public are not aware of when they will be hit by water cuts, they tend to store more water, thereby resulting in more water wasted.”  

To provide a comprehensive solution, he said what is needed is an inter-departmental committee headed by the MB to be established in cooperation with members from National Water Services Commission (Span), Selangor executive councils and related water supply concessionaires to study the crisis.

Among the possible remedies he said were for the state government to ready water pumps to draw lake water when necessary, to develop underground water supply and additional water storage areas, upgrade water treatment stations and pipes and engineer cloud-seeding.

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