SHAH ALAM, 3 Dec: The report by the Select Committee on Competency, Accountability and Transparency (Selcat) regarding the use of mine water has been completed and approved by the Selangor State Assembly (DNS) today.
Its Chairman, Hannah Yeoh, said that the hearing on the matter was previously done behind closed doors to discuss the logical calculation and not to hide information from the public.
“We want to inform the public that the report on the investigation of usage of mine water during droughts several months ago has been completed and presented during the DNS session.
“It has been discussed and approved,” she said during a media conference today.
Hannah said that the Selcat has called several witnesses, namely academics, to complete the report which was written by Prof Datuk Dr Mohd Jamil Maah and Dr Muhammad Aqeel Ashraf, the state government, the Selangor Water Management Authority (LUAS) and the Klang Member of Parliament, Charles Santiago, who questioned it use.
“Generally, academics argue that indeed mine water has metal content, but when mixed and diluted with river water and treated, it is safe to use.
“All this while, mine water naturally flows to rivers during heavy rain without pumping,” she said.
She said that the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Health has also confirmed that the water discharged from treatment plants to consumers, the Department of Health will verify that the water is safe to be used.
“The hot issue during the Assembly just now was about rights because the previous administration announced RM10 million for the purchase of water pumps. When we made this assessment, the pumps had not arrived. They just arrived.
“This RM10 million is not just for pumps, but also for cloud seeding and so on. We are not happy with this. What we see is that this is a serious issue to be disclosed by the government to the public,” she said.
The Permatang Assemblyman, Sulaiman Razak, who is also a Selcat committee member, said that among the matters discussed is a joint effort to preserve rivers and asked the state government to provide provisions for this purpose.
“Our problem now is polluted river water.We need to provide provisions so that river maintenance is at the third class level, not fourth or fifth which is severely polluted.
“This is so that the cleaning process at treatment plants do not require high costs,” he said.
NS
