The Chairman of National Water Service Commission (SPAN), Datuk Liang Teck Meng should resign over the failure of SPAN to meet their mission and vision. SPAN was set up with a mission to regulate the water services industry through fair, effective and transparent implementation of Water Services Industry Act 2006 WSIA and a vision towards a sustainable, reliable and affordable water service for all. However, they had failed both terribly.
Liang should take full responsibility for the failure to improve the water service in all states in the country especially in Selangor. We can see that there is no improvement in water industry throughout the country since Liang took the office on 1st November 2016. SPAN has failed to regulate the maintenance works of WTPs operated by Splash especially the SSP3 plant which caused major water disruption to more than 500,000 accounts in Klang Valley on 6th March 2018. Besides, three of the water pumps at SSP3 plant have not been repaired since 2016 and this shows that SPAN has failed their responsibility to regulate the water service industry effectively.
Liang who is also Member of Parliament for Simpang Renggam had also failed his responsibility as SPAN Chairman for unable to advise the federal government to forcefully taking over Splash as stipulated under Section 114 of WSIA to complete the state’s water restructuring exercise. This has proven that both SPAN and federal government are more interested to use the water issue in Selangor as their political strategy for coming GE in their effort to retain Selangor.
According to WSIA, SPAN may advise or recommend the Minister to to revoke an individual license under few circumstances and in this case, it is obvious that Splash has failed to comply with conditions of their licensing.