By Khairul Khalid
Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leaders have slammed Gamuda for questioning the federal government’s forced takeover of Selangor’s water assets.
“It is completely hypocritical for Lin Yun Ling (Gamuda’s group managing director, pictured) to preach “the sanctity of contracts”. What Gamuda is doing is absolutely disgraceful. They are holding the rakyat to ransom by refusing to agree to a more-than-reasonable price offered by the Selangor state government,” said PR leaders Rafizi Ramli, Tony Pua and Dzulkefly Ahmad in a joint statement.
The members of PR’s Selangor water committee were responding to an article last Friday in which Lin criticised the federal government for enforcing WSIA (Water Services Industry Act) to force a federal takeover of Selangor’s water assets.
The federal government enacted WSIA after three out of the four concessionaires failed to agree on the latest offer of RM9.65 billion stated in the MoU (memorandum of understanding) to resolve the longstanding water restructuring issue.
“In the water concessionaire contracts which Syarikat Pengeluar Air Selangor Holdings (Splash) willingly signed there were clear terms set out for the purposes of terminating the concession and buy back by the federal and/or state governments,” said the statement by PR.
The PR leaders also point out that Gamuda did not object to WSIA when it was legislated.
(From left) Tony Pua, Dzulkefly Ahmad & Rafizi Ramli
“When WSIA was passed in 2006 which gives power to the minister to exercise takeovers of the water companies in the event of public interest, Gamuda or Splash did not even object to the law. Lin isn’t only refusing to honour the sanctity of the concession contracts, he wants to defy the law which was drafted by the BN (Barisan Nasional) government in consultation with the private water industry players,” said the statement.
According to the PR leaders, Lin wants the water deal inked not on a “willing buyer, willing seller” basis but on a “delirious seller, extorted buyer” deal.
“Lin forgets that unlike normal private business transactions, this is a concession granted by the government. Under all normal concessionary terms throughout the world, as per the Splash contract, the government is only responsible for a refund of the investment made and a minimum stipulated return on the investment for the operating years. The state government has tried its best to conduct a “willing buyer, willing seller” deal for the past six years without success,” said the PR leaders.
Selangor’s four water concessionaires are Konsortium Abass (a subsidiary of the Selangor state), Puncak Niaga, Syabas (Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor) and Splash (Syarikat Pengeluar Air Selangor).
Out of the four concessionaires, only Konsortium Abass accepted the state government’s last offer of RM9.65 billion for a state takeover of water assets before the federal government stepped in with WSIA.
Splash is 30% owned by state-owned Kumpulan Perangsang Selangor (KPS), 40% owned by construction company Gamuda and 30% owned by The Sweet Water Alliance that is linked to businessman Wan Azmi Wan Hamzah.
According to the PR water committee, the terms of the Selangor water agreement with the private concessionaires were very clear.
“In these agreements, in the event of terminating the concession, the government will have to compensate the concessionaire by acquiring the value of the water assets under the concession, as well as to ensure that the concessionaire will receive a mininum return of 12% per annum for the previous years of operations,” the PR leaders explained.
They add that the government is not even legally obliged to take over the loans of the water concessionaires, as the federal government has done for Splash.
“Therefore PR fully supports the position of the Selangor Menteri Besar (MB) Khalid Ibrahim and the state government to demand that the federal government immediately exercise its powers under the WSIA,” PR said.
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