{"id":4105,"date":"2010-11-12T19:19:30","date_gmt":"2010-11-12T11:19:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/buletinonline.net\/v7\/index.php\/2010\/11\/of-debt-to-federal-government-and-bailouts-to-concessionaires\/"},"modified":"2010-11-12T19:19:30","modified_gmt":"2010-11-12T11:19:30","slug":"of-debt-to-federal-government-and-bailouts-to-concessionaires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/of-debt-to-federal-government-and-bailouts-to-concessionaires\/","title":{"rendered":"Of debt to federal government and bailouts to concessionaires"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to the Auditor-General Report 2009, the State of Selangor owes the Federal Government a sum of RM929.86 million.<\/p>\n

It must be made known to all that 85 per cent of the debt \u2014 the equivalent of RM705 million \u2014 was incurred as a result of procurement of water assets in the state. In accordance to the privatisation of Selangor Water, a tripartite agreement between Syabas, the State of Selangor and the federal government, where Syabas assumed the role of Puas (Perbadanan Urus Air Selangor) in the management distribution of Selangor water.<\/p>\n

When the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) government took over the state, it was learnt that the record of all water assets were incomplete in the water inventory of the state.<\/p>\n

The PR state government, with the help of former engineers with the Selangor Water Supply Department (JBAS), initiated a thorough inventory; an identification and reassessment of the value of all the state\u2019s water assets.<\/p>\n

These engineers were involved in the planning for Selangor and were also engaged in the building of the dams and some of the treatment plants of the state.<\/p>\n

Prior to the reassessment, the value of state\u2019s water assets were priced at RM1billion. Incidentally, the federal government insists on this value for the state\u2019s water asset.<\/p>\n

However, after a thorough revaluation by the state\u2019s consultant engineers, the value of all state\u2019s water assets is priced at RM10.98 billion.<\/p>\n

If the state government of Selangor is allowed to take over all assets of the concessionaires, consolidate them and later transfer it to the PAAB (Perbadanan Aset Air Berhad), a special purpose vehicle established under the Water Services Industrial act (WSIA, 2006), the state government of Selangor will not only be in a better position to pay the debt owed to the federal government but as well will be in possession of additional assets worth RM9 billion.<\/p>\n

Hence, the issue of the state government\u2019s debt doesn\u2019t arise as agreed with the Auditor General.<\/p>\n

Bailout<\/p>\n

Latest statement from the Minister of Energy, Green Technology and Water Datuk Seri Peter Chin has now made it very imminent that the federal government is most likely to bail out the water concessionaires in the state of Selangor to the tune of RM6.4 billion.<\/p>\n

This will surely vindicate the claim of opposition and the NGOs that the BN government has a penchant to \u201cprivatise profit and nationalise losses\u201d.<\/p>\n

Should the federal government continue with the proposal to bail out these concessionaires, at the expense of the tax-payers money, using the method of \u201cswapping existing bonds with triple-A government-backed ones\u201d, the Pakatan Rakyat will organise a nationwide road-show to campaign against the endless protection of \u201ccronies\u201d at the expense of and short-changing the tax-payers money.<\/p>\n

This will also surely impinge on our already yawning fiscal deficit, as it will increase the public debt now sustained at 53.7 per cent GDP.<\/p>\n

The minister must invoke the provision of Sections 113 and 114 to intervene and safeguard the greater interest of the people of Selangor, Putrajaya and Kuala Lumpur so as to put the long drawn fiasco to rest once and for all, in the true spirit and purpose of the enactment of WSIA, 2006 and the legislation of SPAN, 2006, which is to have a holistic and consolidated management of water in all states.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to the Auditor-General Report 2009, the State of Selangor owes the Federal Government a sum of RM929.86 million. It must be made known to all that 85 per cent of the debt \u2014 the equivalent of RM705 million \u2014 was incurred as a result of procurement of water assets in the state. In accordance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"better_featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4105"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}