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Speech
(Perak , Wednesday): The Perak BN Government has announced that water tariffs will be up by 15% on 1st April 2006. There is no basis for such an increase as the Perak Water Board has been making millions of ringgit every year. It made RM54.03 million in 2005. The table below shows the profits that Perak Water Board made from 1998 to 2005.
The last 8 years’ profit totaled RM265,309,200. The Menteri Besar of Perak, Dato’ Seri Diraja Tajol Rosli has in the past gave the assurance in the State Assembly that so long as he is still the Menteri of Perak there will be no water tariff. The assurance could be boldly given because every year the Perak Water Board was making profit as can be seen above. Therefore, he has to honour his pledge in not increasing the water tariff or he has to quit as the Menteri Besar of Perak. Why the sudden change when he recently announced that water tariff will increase come April 1st? Has it to do with the planned corporatisation of the Water Board this year? DAP Perak is against the corporatisation of the Water Board as the existing Perak Water Board has served us well thus far though much more can be done to lessen the non revenue water loss. We also know that a corporation’s main motivation is to make profit and it is answerable only to its shareholders. On the other hand, the Perak Water Board as an agency of the Perak State Government has as its priority to supply sufficient clean water to the people at as low a price as possible due to its social duty. As an agency of the Government it has to be accountable to the people as the ruling Government will have face the people every 5 years at the general elections. The Perak State Government should in fact try to lower the water tariff in Perak. This can be done by not taking a huge margin of profit and improving its water management in order to reduce the non revenue water loss. The non revenue water loss for Perak in 2005 was 30.65% compared to Penang’s 18%. The average water tariff rate in Perak at the moment is 87 sen per cu metre while Penang is charging as low as 22 sen per cu metre! The Perak State Government should heed the call by the Federal Government to the people not to increase the prices of goods indiscriminately as the people are burdened with the recent hike in petroleum products. The Perak Government is the worst culprit as it has recently burdened the people with unwarranted increase in assessment rates, quit rent and land registration fees. The assessment rate increase last year was as much as 112%, quit rent increase this year was as much as 900 % and the land registration fees was increased multiple folds. The Perak State Government must remember that there are still many who are poor in Perak. As an illustration as was reported recently in the media, in Taiping some can only afford to pump one (1) ringgit of petrol at a time and when the petrol kiosk requires them to pump a minimum of RM1.50 at a time it became a burden to them. The Perak DAP calls on the Menteri Besar of Perak to honour his pledge and stop the intended water tariff hike . (29/03/2006)
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