Water supply approval for 761 projects in Selangor delayed

KUALA LUMPUR: Water supply approval for 761 new projects in Selangor involving 467 million litres of water are still held back as at January, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.
Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Minister Tan Sri Noh Omar said from the total, 40% or 305 projects were related to apartments and terrace houses.
"It is clear when the Prime Minister (Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak) said Selangor is facing critical water problem but Selangor Menteri Besar (Datuk Seri Mohamad Azmin Ali ) did not accept the statement, over his ego," he said during Ministers' Question Time.
He was replying to a question by Budiman Mohd Zohdi (BN-Sungai Besar) who wanted to know whether the ministry had received complaints from housing developers which failed to complete their projects as a result of the water problem in Selangor.
Commenting further, Noh acknowledged the ministry also received complaints from unhappy developers as they were forced to apply for an extension of time (EOT) to avoid getting fined due to the water crisis in the state.
Apart from housing, Noh said urban development, commercial and industrial projects were also affected by the Selangor water crisis.
He said the crisis had also resulted in the reluctance of external parties to invest in the state.
In the past, Selangor was the most favoured state for investment but it was now placed fourth compared to Johor in the first spot, followed by Penang in the second place and Sarawak, third, he added.
Noh said even though there were only 20 projects in Sarawak, the value of the investment was RM10.5 billion with an average of RM525 million per project.
“Selangor has 202 projects but the total investment was only RM5.5 billion which means the average value of each project was only RM27.2 million,” he said. — Bernama