KUCHING: Utilities Minister Datuk Seri Dr Stephen Rundi Utom said the state government is committed to improving the reliability of water supply in Sarawak.
“We are committed to achieving 100 per cent water supply in Sarawak by 2025. We are also committed to having average water pressure of two bars in urban areas and one bar in the rural areas,” said Dr Rundi to GPS convention delegates yesterday.
According to him, the challenges faced by the state government include broadening water supply to 100 percent and to reduce non-revenue water (NRW) to 25 percent by 2025. The present NRW is 41 per cent.
On the people’s project (projek rakyat), Dr Rundi said from 266 total projects, excluding 56 projects under Sarawak Alternative Water Supply (Sawas), 49 per cent or 130 projects are under implementation, 33 per cent (87 projects) has been completed and 40 per cent (105 project) are at pre-contract/design and documentation.
He said 85 per cent of the projects are already tendered out and in various stages of implementation.
On rural electricity supply programme, Dr Rundi said the state government hopes to achieve 100 per cent coverage by 2025.
“At the moment, domestic coverage is 96.4 per cent while rural area coverage stands at 92 per cent,” he said.
Meanwhile Local Government Assistant Minister Datuk Dr Penguang Manggil said the three city councils, four municipal councils and 19 district councils continue to play vital roles in the development of the state.
He said among the projects implemented by the local authorities are ‘projek rakyat’, community-based projects, KPKT (federal), Marris, RTP and RMK11.
He said under RMK-12, 672 projects were implemented in 2019 on an allocation of RM199.4 million.
He said these projects do not include those implemented by Kuching North City Commission (DBKU) and Bintulu Development Authority (BDA).
On implementation of rural transformation projects (RTP) in 2019 (excluding DBKU and BDA), Penguang said there were 602 projects implemented involving a total cost of RM87.2 million.
According to Penguang, allocations from the federal government was not much but the state government is committed to providing more funding to the local authorities to ensure urgent services, facilities and infrastructure are provided for.
He said all local authorities are operating on negative budget every year, adding that the government has abolished the rates which are below RM50.
He urged the community leaders and the public to give their full support to GPS so that local authorities can continue to function for their benefit.
