PUTRAJAYA: Water concessionaires may lose their license if their services are found to be dissatisfactory.
National Water Services Commission (Span) chief executive officer Datuk Ahmad Faizal Abdul Rahman said they could be penalised under the Water Services Industry Act 2006.
He said the concessionaires' performance would be monitored based on the set key performance indicators (KPIs).
They include water supply coverage, quality of treated water and reducing non-revenue water (NRW), among others.
"So far, no companies in Malaysia have had their licence revoked.
"With the increase in revenue collection, it is hoped that they would be able to improve their services and implement infrastructure projects, or face stringent actions (if they fail to do so)," he said in a media briefing here.
He said this would hopefully put an end to the "chicken and egg" situation, where some concessionaires claimed the lack of financial capacity and manpower that restricted efforts to improve their quality of services.
For example, some pipelines were installed over 30 years ago and have not been replaced since, he said.
"This has resulted in issues such as leakages that have contributed to the non-revenue water (NRW).
"This definitely affects the quality of treated water that reaches the consumers, but at the same time, some firms said they could not afford to carry out infrastructure projects including for pipes or don't have enough staff to carry out repair works on leaked pipes," he said.
As the maintenance works were not being carried out within the stipulated period, this has further impacted the quality of services, he said.
Currently, most works carried out by water concessionaires involve corrective maintenance, instead of periodical maintenance, he said.