TNB Said SYABAS Delayed Repair Works From September To Christmas Week
TNB wanted the maintenance works to be done in September, but SYABAS had insisted on postponing it for "specific reasons".
By Nandini Balakrishnan — 19 Dec 2016, 02:59 PM
SYABAS announced last Friday, 16 December, that households in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor will be facing water cuts from 19 till 24 December.
The pre-Christmas water disruption will affect about 3.89 million residents in Klang Valley.
Given the timing of the scheduled water disruption, a lot of people started complaining about the inconvenience that it will cause the residents in Klang Valley, especially since the disruption is scheduled to end on the eve of Christmas.
SYABAS said that the water disruption is due to scheduled maintenance works at the TNB facility in Bukit Badong, Hulu Selangor, which will affect the three Sungai Selangor water treatment plants that supply water to about 60% of residents in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor.
The heavy onset of complains led to a press conference by TNB yesterday, 18 December.
TNB's chief corporate officer Roslan Ab Rahman, said that the repair works were initially scheduled for 27 September but SYABAS had insisted on postponing it for "specific reasons".
"It has been planned for earlier but was postponed."
"If we continue postponing, there will be a risk of failure. The decision to postpone was not ours, but that of the National Water Services Commission (Span)," said Roslan, as reported by The Sun today, 19 December.
He also explained that the maintenance works cannot be postponed for any longer as further delays could lead to longer power outages in the future.
"Physical inspections, including thermal scanning carried out on 15 December, detected two hot spots that require immediate action to prevent any major damage to the equipment at the main intake substation.
"If the works are delayed again, there's a possibility that a breakdown can occur and repairs would then take as long as three weeks," he added.
The press conference also revealed that TNB's maintenance works will only take 16 hours starting from 8am on 19 December, which leaves us with the question on why the water cuts will last all the way till 24 December
He said that SYABAS must explain why the water disruption in 814 areas will last for the whole week when the TNB's repair works would only take less than 24 hours.
Roslan also stressed that SYABAS will have to upgrade their back-up power generators to ensure that there will be no water disruptions during TNB's maintenance works in the future
It was reported that SYABAS' generators do not have the capacity to provide electricity to water plants, which is the reason for the water disruption this week.