Source: MALAYSIA STAR : ASIA WATER BUSINESS , 9th OCTOBER 2007

IPOH: The Perak Water Board must improve its water quality until it is on par with the European Union (EU) standards, Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Mohamad Tajol Rosli Ghazali said.

Instead of asking for water tariffs to go down, the board should improve its water quality, he said.

"The water quality is now up to WHO (World Health Organisation) standard but I have given the board the target of being up to EU standard," he said on Monday after chairing the board meeting here.

"The EU standard is a pipe bursting once a year while ours happens 10 times a year," he added.

He noted that in some parts of the country, tap water was yellow in colour.

"We want our water to be like the bottled water that we buy. We want to be able to drink water from the tap even when there is a flood," he said.

Tajol Rosli also announced the board's 2008 budget of RM389mil, of which RM215mil (or 55.32%) will go to management expenditure; RM138mil (or 35.55%) for development expenditure and RM35.52mil (or 9.13%) to repay loans.

Profit before tax until this August had gone up by RM12.91mil, he said, adding that the profit was estimated to touch some RM62.25mil by the end of the year.

A total of RM2.471mil had also been paid out to 1,011 workers of the board, he said.

On the RM14bil Hadhari International City proposed by a private firm at Sungai Behrang in Tanjong Malim, Tajol Rosli said he had advised the Felda settlers not to sign any agreement or give away their rights to the land.

"They must be careful and we want to make sure that nobody gets their fingers burnt at the end of the day," he added.