Water concessionaire taken to task for improprieties

by Roshan Jason     Published 10 Jun 2005       Source : Malaysiakini

Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor Sdn Bhd (Syabas) has already been issued a show-cause letter by the government but a group of concerned citizens, non-governmental organisations and politicians want more action taken against the concessionaire for other 'scandalous' activities.

They also want the authorities to answer daunting questions pertaining to the Syabas scandal and the government's water privatisation plans nationwide.

The company has been accused of flouting open tender requirements - when awarding a RM375 million tender to replace water pipes in the Klang Valley - by manipulating its outcome.


The project was highlighted in the media after Syabas had flogged concessionaire agreements by procuring imported pipes.

The 30-year concessionaire for the nation's biggest water supply privatisation for Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya is said to have admitted that part of its tender requirements held that the project was only made available to bumiputra companies.

Syabas was also taken to task for nominating the companies which were awarded the project a day before the tender closed on April 26, 2004. The two companies awarded the deal were Laksana Wibawa Sdn Bhd and Musa & Rahman Plastic Industries Sdn Bhd.
 
Conflict of interest

Opposition leader Lim Kit Siang, in a roundtable meeting in Parliament on water privatisation today, made these statements and also linked one of the two companies to Syabas executive chairperson Rozali Ismail.

"Both these nominated companies are not only relatively unknown, they raise disturbing questions about the propriety of such last-minute distortion of the tender process by designating companies to be obligatory suppliers.

"Laksana Wibawa, Puncak Niaga and Syabas are believed to have a common factor in Rozali Ismail who is executive chairperson of both Syabas and Puncak Niaga," Lim told the 30-odd people present at the meeting.

Syabas is a subsidiary of Puncak Niaga whom the Selangor government had owed over a billion ringgit for water supplied from its treatment plants.

Lim urged Minister of Energy, Water and Telecommunications Dr Lim Keng Yaik to act transparently and accountably by making public the Syabas water privatisation concession agreements.

He also questioned if the government now has the right to terminate the concession as there have been violations.
 

Lim, had in a press statement yesterday, urged the government to also disallow Syabas from increasing its tariffs - by 15 sen as planned - beginning Jan 1 next year.
The minister's representative to the meeting Teoh Yen Hua (the ministry's deputy secretary general) said he will pass on the issues raised at the roundtable discussions to the minister.

The meeting was also attended by Chin Yong Kheong who is the director of KPMG Business Advisory Sdn Bhd, the government's consultant in the plan to privatise water nationwide, who briefed attendees on his studies and plans for the proposed 'water corporatisation' move.

Bodies represented at today's meeting were SOS Selangor, Penang Consumer Protection Association, Fomca, the Parliamentary Public Account Committee, PAS, Permas and the Monitoring Sustainability of Globalisation outfit.