‘End of water woes in Tg Manis once works completed next year’
KUCHING: The water supply interruption to Tanjong Manis will be resolved once the two packages of the water supply project through Sarikei are completed by next year, says Minister of Utilities Dato Sri Dr Stephen Rundi Utom.
He said water had been supplied to Tanjung Manis through Sarikei at about eight million litres per day (MLD) through a 17km pipeline. “Once the packages are completed, it will raise the water yield supplied to 18 MLD, which is actually sufficient for Tanjong Manis.
“We are also looking at another source of intake point, which is far from current intake point, in order to enhance the capacity of water intake into Tanjong Manis,” he said at a Gawai Raya dinner hosted by the ministry’s Sports and Recreation Club Monday night.
He further said as far as Tanjong Manis was concerned, it was not entirely a failure as reported by the Auditor-General (AG) last year, as only one of the eight packages was not functioning as it should.
“When the industrial deepsea port was set up by SCORE/ Recoda that time, there was an expected high demand for water. Therefore under the Ministry of Rural and Regional Development (KKW) then, eight packages were approved.
“That one package was supposed to produce 125 MLD, but only half the yield of water was produced from the intake point through the river bank filtration (RBF) system. It only gives about 51 MLD,” he explained.
Compounding that, he added, the water from that intake point was high in ammonia content, which was why it took time for treated water from that package to be distributed. Dr Rundi pointed out that at this moment, while the project is still under implementation, there is bound to be some interruptions due to pipe bursts and other factors.
“So on behalf of the ministry, I would like to appeal to the public to be patient as we are already addressing the issue.
“We are looking for new intake points to increase the capacity to Tanjong Manis within this year or two. Meanwhile, we will look into ways of providing intervention such as water tank supply, to ensure that people have access to safe water,” he said.
Once the packages are completed, it will raise the water yield supplied to 18 MLD, which is actually sufficient for Tanjong Manis.
Dato Sri Dr Stephen Rundi Utom