Ex-MB: State govt not serious about SPLASH bid
SHAH ALAM: The Selangor government has been accused of not being serious in its bid to take over Syarikat Pengeluaran Air Selangor Sdn Bhd (SPLASH).
Former menteri besar Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim claimed his successor, Datuk Seri Azmin Ali, had instead been focusing on how to pay more than RM2.7 billion to the company, and not on resolving the state’s water woes.
This, he said, was a clear case of negligence on the part of the state government.
“By all accounts, the Selangor government should have acquired SPLASH by now. This failure on its part has allowed SPLASH shareholders to reap in even more profits, which has emboldened them to this extent.
“A menteri besar should fight for the people, but for some, their ‘movements’ may be somewhat limited as they are ‘too full’,” he said yesterday.
On Nov 5, 2016, Berita Harian Online had quoted Khalid as saying that the Selangor government had never offered RM2.975 billion for the equity takeover of SPLASH between 2008 and 2014, as claimed by Azmin in the Selangor State Assembly sitting.
Khalid said the claims were made to distract from the discussion on the decision by Azmin’s administration to pay RM2.7 billion to the company, which was 10 times more than the original offer of RM250.6 million.
Meanwhile, Khalid took Selangor assembly Speaker Hannah Yeoh to task for blaming SPLASH for the state’s water crisis, which had affected more than 500,000 homes in the Klang Valley.
He reminded Yeoh that he had once asked the state assembly to bring the water issue, as well as the takeover of SPLASH to the state Select Committee on Competency, Accountability and Transparency.
Khalid said the motion was rejected outright by Yeoh.
“Maybe at the time, she (Yeoh) felt that the issue was not that important.”