The Ministry of Water, Energy and Communications should issue an directive to Syabas to impose an immediate moratorium on water disconnections in the concession area of Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and Putrajaya which affect the poor.

Last month, the Coalition Against Water Privatisation (CAWP) and MTUC had spoken up because they were appalled at the high levels of water supply disconnection in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and Putrajaya since water privatization in the last two years.

They had consistently argued that organising water for profits would lead to high levels of disconnections, a notion that violates peoples’ rights and access to clean water. Poor and vulnerable communities might be at risk.

CAWP and MTUC have been proven right and the Ministry should instruct Syabas to develop a humane way of collecting water bills, one where peoples’ right to clean water is not violated.

In April 2007, the Minster for Water, Energy and Communications informed Parliament that there were a total of 364,200 disconnections in the concession area, namely Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya. It involved 257, 436 home disconnections; 106,100 industrial consumers; and 664 miscellaneous. The revenue from reconnection at RM 50 per reconnection fee is about RM 18.2 million in the last two years. Between January 2007 — September 2007 there were about 136,000 disconnections given that there were approximately 506 disconnections per day in the previous two years. The revenue from disconnections fees for nine months in 2007 is about RM 6.83 million.

In total since privatization there has been a total 500,820 disconnections with a revenue to Syabas at RM 25.04 million. More than 50 percent of all connections in the concession area have been disconnected.

The high number of disconnections demonstrates that Syabas is more interested in making money as opposed to inculcating financial discipline among water consumers in the concession area. Revenue from disconnections appears to be overwhelming.

Syabas had been busy disconnecting water even in the holy month of Ramadan. On one side, Syabas had been organizing buka puasa events and giving alms to the poor and orphaned children and on the other has been busy disconnecting water in homes including Muslim households. This is hypocritical.

Water disconnections during national holidays and religious festivities in a plural society like Malaysia are highly insensitive and the private concessionaire should show greater corporate social responsibilities and respectful of the sensitivities of multi-racial and multi-religious Malaysia where the great religions of the world meet in confluence.

The Water, Energy and Communications Ministry or SPAN should requests Syabas to impose an immediate moratorium on all water disconnections during festival periods such as Hari Raya and Deepavali as well as institute an immediate investigation on Syabas on-going disconnection exercise, to find out the reasons for the high disconnections in the concession area; and to instruct Syabas to develop a more humane approach in collecting bills without penalizing the poor who already suffer from inadequate funds and families in high rise buildings. This should be done in consultation with other stakeholders.

Finally, the regulator (Jabatan Kawalselia) should explain the basis of imposing RM 50 for reconnecting water.

(Speech on the Ministry of Energy, Water and Communications iduring the 2008 Budget committee stage debate in the Dewan Rakyat oo Monday, 26th January 2007)