No new dam is needed in Sabah unless NRW is independently addressed

No new dam is needed in Sabah unless NRW is independently addressed

According to a Bernama report “Sabah is producing the most non revenue water” as reported in Daily Express 26 October, 2004. The loss was 73.86% (2002) and 61.96% (2001).  I believe based on my limited reliable research the NRW is 80+% as it is dependent on various parameters as illustrated in my book “water” ISBN983-2653-12-6 (2005).  So today our NRW is still very substantial (not the official figures of 50%) and need to be  independently scrutinised.   In terms of money, it is in the hundreds of millions ringgit annually for the losses include costs of treating raw water, costs of purchase of raw and treated water from independent suppliers and real loss of treated water through theft of various forms including massive bottled water, broken pipes, and wastage of tap water allowed to run idly. I hope someone would be serious to look into all the aspects of the total losses in various circumstances to give a real figure of loss annually.

So if we can conserve costly treated water, Babagon dam and other points of raw water intakes like Telibong Tuaran  should be more than enough to provide raw water for Sabah especially west coast of Sabah.  Another dam over Papar river would be meaningless and wasteful if NRW is just allowed to be chronic at exceeding high.  Sabah can ill afford another dam because of all the related costs of treated water and the distribution thereof.

I think in the west coast and elsewhere, there is not one day we don’t have water woes.  The director of water department said that “burst pipes could be due to foul play” (DE 24 June, 2019) especially since some termination of water deals. Hotlines of DE has got lots of such daily water woes for decades and even in DE 25 June, 2019 there are two items namely “leaking pipes in Damai need urgent repair” and “Department to look into water supply to kg Keliangau”. The inevitable burst pipes may bring benefits to the staff of the water department and the contractors dealing with such emergency assignments to repair them in any hours. Those contractors who break any water pipes should be asked to indemnify such losses in repair and treated water loss.  Is this being done?

It is not fair to always blame the distribution network of old pipelines as leaking in Sabah in recent decades because the authority has expended RM1,674 billions for the period 1993-2002 to renew most of these pipes. My book has a compilation of many articles on public water system improvement and yet today we still face chronic NRW.  What is the hidden agenda?

In a recent federal funding of RM3.3b or RM7.5b (different sources?) for the treated water in Sabah to be enhanced, it was reported that a substantial portion of that allocation had been siphoned down the channel of official corruption or embezzlement. Yet this case handled by MACC since 2016 is still pending in the Courts. Such stolen money should be returned to the Sabah Water Department to continue its mission to improve treated water in Sabah. Is this being done?

Coming back to my research on NRW for my book in 2005, I had requested the Water Department’s accountant to provide me with the billing documents of 1,000 accounts but was rejected even for free effort. I told him he could provide anonymous accounts holders.  Nevertheless, I had written much about NRW and lodged two Police reports on “The RM5 billions water malaise in Sabah 28 Oct 04 KK/RPT/23409/04” and “Non Revenue Water (NRW) KK/rpt/27530/04 21 Dec 2004”.

I also don’t understand why there are so many treated water cuts regularly for maintenance?  It is incredible that consumers have to go through such stressful periods regularly.

I am forced to share this scenario in London for about a decade in the 1970s. You all know London derives its raw water from filthy River Thames and yet never a day I was there never had a brownish treated water from the tap.  Also there was never any treated water cuts.  How did they manage that?

Now we are told by State Infrastructure development Minister Datuk Peter Anthony in front page of Daily Express “Dam, TAED project to proceed” that the development of Tanjung Aru Beach and other areas would need more treated water.  So the dam in Paper would be required.  He also said that the Babagon dam can no longer meet the needs of Kota Kinabalu right now.

While the chronic scenario of NRW is always ignored, we need to consider other options that are practised in other countries trying to conserve water with desalination of sea water, the recycle of used water for the toilets, water from trees, water from air and also harvest of rain water.  This may help to minimise the use of expensive treated water and that certain massive projects can be self sufficient in water needs. Maybe it is a good start to initiate such options in certain parts of Kota Kinabalu.

TAED is a project likely for the rich only and it may sound questionable that the poor folks in Paper may have to sacrifice their homes, farm land and livelihood for a dam.

I have made a great effort in the preparation a researched paper on treated water to an International Science Society event in Kota Kinabalu recently and then I approached IDS Sabah for a public forum initially approved but both unfortunately later had been aborted. So great opportunities lost to share some knowledge on the treated water issues (life giving) in Sabah.

In the context of NRW, we need to review how bottled water using reverse osmosis from public water as subsidised by taxpayers be permitted without incurring some clawback of subsidy?

 I would propose that the State set up a Commission on treated water to get it right on the billions ringgit deals annually.  I hope I can be a founding commissioner.

Joshua Y C Kong 26/6/2019