‘Address water supply disruptions caused by power outage’
KUCHING: The Kuching Water Board ( KWB) has been asked to come up with effective contingency action plans to address water supply disruptions in the city due to power outages.
Parti Keadilan Rakyat ( PKR) state vice- chairman Boniface Willy Tumek suggested KWB install a generator set with auto-charger functions, which allow for automatic changes from AC power to generator and vice-versa.
“The regular water disruptions have become a source of much frustration as they usually occur during times when water supply is most needed for cooking, cleaning and bathing. And the disruption that is longer than 30 minutes can cause toilets to be in a very unpleasant state,” he said yesterday.
According to the PKR Mas Gading chairman, certain areas in Kuching experienced an almost four- hour disruption in water supply on Monday.
“The disruption started at around 7.30pm, a peak time for domestic water usage. This is the second time water supply in the city is disrupted this year. The first time was on Feb 19.
“In 2016, Kuching experienced three disruptions, twice in the month of November,” he claimed.
According to him, al l the disruptions were because of interruption to the water pumping operations at KWB Batu Kitang Water Treatment Plant as a result of a power outage.
Boniface pointed out that while consumers can appreciate the fact that the cause of the disruptions did not originate with KWB, the latter still has to address the issue.
“KWB owes it to the paying consumers to look for solutions to this problem as SEB (Sarawak Energy Berhad), the source of the problem has not proven themselves to be capable of effectively dealing with the very frequent power outages,” he said.
He added the frequent disruptions in water and electricity supply reflect poorly on Kuching and the authorities, especially when the state government is talking about pushing for a digital economy.