CYBERJAYA, March 16 — The National Water Services Commission Malaysia (SPAN) will form a special committee to probe into the problems at Sungai Selangor Phase 3 (SSP3) water treatment plant, which caused episodes of water disruptions in Selangor last week.

Its chairman Datuk Liang Teck Meng told a news conference here today that SPAN is giving Syarikat Pengeluar Air Selangor Sdn Bhd (SPLASH) until next Friday (March 23) to submit the report of its own investigation before the commission starts its probe.

"Following a SPAN meeting this morning, it is decided that a special committee needs to be formed to find out what actually transpired at SSP3 plant.

"We have notified SPLASH of the new committee through a letter. We understand they are probably busy at the moment so we are just waiting for them to submit their own findings before we can start our own,” he said.

He said the committee will be headed by SPAN’s recruitment and services committee chairman Datuk Lim Chow Hock and involve three other of its commissioners.

He also denied allegations by certain quarters who said that SPAN was not doing its job throughout the entire water disruption episode.

He said SPAN has actually identified the problems at SSP3 plant at the end of January after detecting a reduction of the treated water production from the average 820 million litre per day (mld) to 795mld.

"After that, SPAN has visited the plant and conducted an audit on the pump system on February 5. On February 15, we wrote a letter to SPLASH, asking them to expedite the repair works at the plant. Don’t tell us we are not playing our role,” he said.

Liang, who is also Simpang Renggam MP, called on the state government to not politicise water issues in the country by making false claims against the federal government.

"Some said there were elements of sabotage from the federal government’s side which is completely untrue.

"Two years ago Selangor Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Azmin Ali also pointed his fingers to the BN government during the Semenyih issue, but SPAN never received any filings to back the allegations up.

"Do not politicise things. Selangor government has to look back at the agreements made between them and the four water companies. Federal government has nothing to do with this,” he said.

On March 6, SSP3 treatment plant has stopped operations for 10 hours to accommodate a few remedial works but upon completion, several pipes burst near its Surge Vessel System.

The incident had caused the plant, with the designed capacity of 800mld, to halt operations instantaneously and this triggered prolonged water disruptions affecting some 2.8 million Selangor folks at 498 areas statewide.