SHAH ALAM 29th AUGUST: Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor (Syabas) should compensate for each water supply outage that consumers experience, said Rafizi Ramli.
The Pandan Member of Parliament asserted that Syabas’ failure to maintain the pumping station in Wangsa Maju, which led to the recent water supply disruption that caused severe distress on the locals, was unacceptable.
As the largest concession holder of the water supply in Selangor, Syabas should bear responsibilities by compensating consumers who were affected by the outage.
“For a concession holder that monopolises Klang Valley, the incident was inexcusable,” he said in a media statement today.
The disruption bore similarities to a previous incident last December, when the locals around Pandan, Ampang, Gombak and Wangsa Maju experienced water supply outages for three weeks, following disrepair at the Wangsa Maju pumping station.
Rafizi revealed that a decision has already been reached to file a claim against Syabas at the Consumer Claims Tribunal, under Section 53 of the Consumer Protection Act 1999.
The section reads: “Where services are supplied to a consumer, there shall be implied a guarantee that the services will be carried out with reasonable care and skill.”
“If Syabas had reasonable care and skill, recurring water supply outages could have been preventable,” said Rafizi.
He also said that the Parliament Service Centre will assist consumers in submitting their information at www.rafiziramli.com/tribunalpengguna to file their claims.
In addition to writing letters to the Chairman of Syabas, Tan Sri Rozali Ismail, to demand for explanation, Rafizi said those measured steps were organised as a campaign to ensure Syabas’ culpability for every water supply disruption incident.
– FZL
