Cleaning up the Klang River is a start; a relook at water prices is needed

Pouring oil on troubled waters
S Jayasankaran, Business Times 22 Mar 10;

THE Selangor state government is to be lauded for its plan to rehabilitate the Klang River - a 120 km channel between Klang and Ampang that vacillates between death and uneasy existence in fits that parallel the country's dry and wet seasons, respectively.

Kuala Lumpur has talked about similar projects often enough. Indeed, funds have been released for ad-hoc clean-ups that have never achieved any sort of permanence because of a lack of follow-through measures - such as making sure that the factories and squatter houses that pollute the waterways are permanently removed.

But Selangor is trying. The state government recently gazetted the river bank, ensuring that no development can take place there. It has also named four companies - selected after an open tender involving 37 firms - to begin the clean-up.

It's part of the state's economic stimulus package to catalyse growth, and Selangor's leaders obviously hope that their efforts will be appreciated by the people and validated at the next election. There is much at stake here. Selangor is Malaysia's richest state with a gross domestic product per capita at roughly RM24,000 (S$10,120) - which is comfortably ahead of the national average. Indeed, its size and relative affluence is reflected in the fact that just one municipality - Klang - collects more rates than the entire state of Negeri Sembilan.

That makes it a prize and am unending source of regret for the Barisan Nasional coalition which lost it to the opposition during the March 8, 2008 general election. The state is headed by Khalid Ibrahim, a former corporate hotshot who is from the opposition Parti Keadilan Rakyat.

Getting power is one thing; keeping it for the wrong reasons another thing altogether. So while the Klang River project should win him kudos, his attempts at populism should not. Immediately after winning the elections, the state government announced that it would waive charges for the first 20 cubic metres of water used by households in Selangor.

In truth, the measure is a populist sop as a household will save just RM12 a month. But it sends the wrong signal - water is a valuable resource, too valuable to be made a political tool.

In fact, there is an argument to be made for increasing the tariff for heavy users such as households that use more than 20 cubic metres a month. Indeed, there was a suggestion that people should be charged double for the 21st to 30th cubic metre with the rates rising geometrically with usage. There is considerable merit in the suggestion.

In the present dry season, there is talk that the water levels at dams nationwide are dropping. Despite all the rainfall, we do not seem to be able to collect enough.

Compounding matters is a simple truth: the country is a notorious waster of water. Malaysians tend to overuse water to the tune of about 300 litres per person per day. That is a mind-boggling number as the international standard is only about 165 litres a person a day.

In Singapore, high tariffs have brought the usage down to 150 litres a day while people in India and Africa, more from sheer lack, use 100 litres and 50 litres respectively.

Water can never be 'free'. Making it thus only incentivises people to waste it. And as an avowed foe of public sector waste, Mr Khalid should know better.