I READ with great interest the New Straits Times report on Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s wish to renegotiate the “manifestly ridiculous” water deal with Singapore. Syabas, prime minister. It’s time someone told our southern neighbour to get real. Obviously, Dr Mahathir is just the right man.
Singapore needs to be realistic. Such an agreement is a commercial one. There is cost involved in getting the water piped to Singapore. Even Malaysians pay more. We are not swimming in money to subsidise Singapore, a sovereign country. It is a different story if Singapore was a poverty-stricken nation that needs the help of its neighbour to see it through another day.
Singapore’s gross domestic product per capita in 2016 was RM212,000 and it wants water from Malaysia at three sen per 1,000 gallons. Malaysia’s GDP per capita, in the same year, was RM38,000. The agreement was signed in 1962 and this advanced neighbour of ours wants the price to reflect the world of the 20th century.
Singapore’s stand on the water deal is out of place. I think the word that best describes this kind of behaviour is “ludicrous”.
This is not the first time Malaysia is being pushed to the corner by Singapore. It was the same with the railway agreement and gas agreement. Singapore needs to understand that a lasting agreement is a just agreement, not an unrealistic one.
It may be true that Singaporeans are good at negotiating. But a truly good negotiator will be just to his contracting party, especially when the contracting party is its neighbour. Being a good neighbour means being a just neighbour.
No one can buy anything for three sen let alone 1,000 gallons of water. Three sen didn’t make sense even in 1962, what more in 2018.
AHM
Ipoh, Perak
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