Amarjit talking to reporters after the visit yesterday.
KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Water Department director Datuk Amarjit Singh urged contractors to immediately lodge complaints regarding leak pipes caused by road constructions.
He reminded contractors not to hide such incident, if any, under the carpet.
“We have been going around for the past three days during this festive season looking for all these things, and we found out that this is one of the problems,” explained Amarjit yesterday.
He and his team went to Sulaman after receiving complaints regarding water supply problems faced by areas namely ILP, IKM, Taman B24 and nearby Akademi Bomba, and upon inspections by his staff they found elements that had contributed to the problems.
He understood that road constructions are important which is also under the same ministry with his department but there is also coordination problem between parties.
“This coordination issue is between developers or maybe projects under the Public Works Department. I will discuss with the department’s director during an upcoming meeting with them.
“When we see today, a number of 450 pipes are experiencing leakages and it happened since Thursday last week. We were not informed, so it’s a waste (of water),” said Amarjit, adding that they found the leakages were allegedly due to works carried out by contractors.
When asked about issues to be discussed in the meeting, Amarjit said; “We want to tell the Public Works Department that we should be involved in their constructions.”
“Fine, I know they want to do their job and they always claim this is their right way they are doing it, but then you need to protect the utilities.
“Imagine how many contractors here, we should be planning for better Sabah,” he said.
He further said that with better coordination between parties, it would help in the digging works as his staff will be there to identify places where the pipes are located.
Amarjit also disclosed that he will have some reshuffle in order to get the right people to do the right job to overcome this issue.
Apart from the issue, healso found that the water supply problems within the involved areas were also due to illegal water taps at Kampung Delima and Kampung Suang Parai.
“These illegal water connections had been disconnected because they caused water pressure problems.
“Apart from that, we will also issue compound to offenders,” he said.
Amarjit explained that the numbers involved were too big but during his visit there, only six were found.
“I think it’s a huge number if you are talking about illegal water connections which have been here for many years, I saw only six just now,” he said.