'Where are the million users affected by water in Kedah' Sanusi ask critics
ALOR SETAR - Kedah Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor has refuted claims that nearly one million users had experienced water disruptions during the recent Raya celebration.
He said the complete report from Syarikat Air Darul Aman (Sada) indicated that only 7,222 accounts were affected, a significantly smaller in comparison to the overall 645,041 accounts in the state.
“Some people like to cause commotion as if a big crisis occurred in Kedah. Out of all the accounts, only 7,222 were affected and required water sent through lorries. It accounted for only 1.12 per cent of the overall accounts affected.
“Please repent," he said in a press conference after the Kedah Exco Meeting in Wisma Darul Aman, today.
Citing an example, he said there were i10 individuals per household including the parents, the number of affected individuals would reach 70,000 but this still falls far short of the one million individuals that were initially claimed to be affected.
"So where are these one million individuals affected?” he said.
He said Sada was committed to provide assistance to those affected by arranging water deliveries using lorries, despite the significant costs involved.
He said RM2.5 million had been allocated in March. Furthermore, he expressed his hope that the ongoing development of five water treatment plants (LRA) would proceed as planned, which would help reduce the expenses associated with lorry deliveries.
He added the cost according to records of delivering water through lorries to affected areas in 2015 was RM307,510, followed by RM 5.8 million in 2016, RM8.1 million in 2017, RM 567,000 in 2018, RM1.9 million in 2019, RM3.08 million in 2020, RM5.07 million in 2021 and RM6.6 million in 2022.
He further said the costs of water delivery using lorries saw a decrease in 2018 when the Pokok Sena LRA became operational. However, the costs escalated once again in the follwoing year due to the government's construction review of five new LRAs that were underway at that time.
Sanusi also provided an update on the construction progress of the five Kedah LRAs . He said the Pelubang LRA is being implemented by the state government subsidiary Bina Darulaman Berhad.
He added that as of April 30, the completion rate of the Pelubang LRA was reported to be 12.41 per cent. However, the actual progress achieved was 13.43 percent, surpassing the set rate by 1.02 percent.
“The same was for other LRAs which are all on track except for the Sungai Limau LRA which was 0.41 per cent late behind schedule.
“They should’ve reached 11.39 per cent on April 30, but they achieved only 10.98 and we have taken action by calling a contractor to perform what was immediately needed,” he said.
