JOHOR BARU: The Johor government is formulating plans to end its dependence on Singapore for the state’s treated water supply.
Menteri Besar Datuk Osman Sapian said the plan would be finalised soon.
“The matter is still in the planning stages. I cannot share the details at the moment until the plan is ready to be implemented,” he said in a statement issued through the Menteri Besar’s Office.
The statement referred to his speech made at the closing of the Johor State Government’s Retreat Session with Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and his cabinet ministers in Putrajaya on Friday.
On Thursday, during the retreat, Dr Mahathir called on Johor to take proactive measures to solve the issue of buying treated water from Singapore.
Dr Mahathir said it did not make sense for a “wealthy country like Singapore” to still be buying water from Malaysia at the low price of 3 sen per 1,000 gallons.
The prime minister said the Johor government and its people should be more vocal in raising Singapore-related matters, including its supply of water and electricity, instead of waiting for action from the Federal Government.
In an immediate response, Singapore Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said he would leave it to Singaporeans to decide whether the republic had been “fair” or “morally wrong’ in the pricing of water.
Describing Dr Mahathir’s comments as a “red herring” intended to rouse public opinion, Balakrishnan, quoted by Today Online, told the Singapore Parliament that the republic and Malaysia “have chosen different fundamental philosophies of governance and taken different paths of development”.
Balakrishnan noted that the 1962 Water Agreement, which was guaranteed by both nations in the 1965 Separation Agreement, was not about “who is richer or poorer” but about the fundamental principle of respecting the sanctity of agreements.
Last August, Dr Mahathir said he aimed to increase the price of raw water sold to Singapore by 1,000 per cent, to reflect the increased cost of living from when the agreement between both countries was inked.
The prime minister repeated his stand on the isssue in February, saying that Foreign Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah had been tasked with leading the talks with Singapore on the issue.