GEORGE TOWN – Penang has vowed to defend itself in court if Kedah is insistent on seeking legal channels to settle the dispute over the source of the Sg Muda riverine which supplies raw water to both neighbouring states.
Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow said that Penang will not meet the compensation demands of Kedah because it is undertaking abstraction of raw water within its own territory and not of Kedah.
“Sg Muda is a transboundary river that separates Penang and Kedah. As such, Penang will continue to uphold its riparian rights to abstract raw water from Sg Muda in its own territory without payment,” he said.
“What this means is that the centre line of a stretch of Sg Muda defines the state territories of Penang and Kedah.”
The Penang Water Supply Corporation draws raw water from the river at the Lahar Tiang Intake in Seberang Prai, Penang – not in Kedah – and downstream of 13 water treatment plants under Kedah’s water utility company Syarikat Air Darul Aman Sdn Bhd, he said.
Offering a historical perspective, Chow said that in 1973 the late Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, Malaysia’s second prime minister, officiated the opening of the Sg Muda Water Scheme (SMWS) for the benefit of Penang and Kedah.
In his message printed on the official programme for the opening ceremony, the then chief minister Tun Lim Chong Eu had noted that the SMWS was “an in-state water supply scheme”.
In 1982, Penang and Kedah signed a memorandum of understanding to facilitate the Penang Water Supply Project. This MoU moved the states’ boundary to the centre line of a stretch of Sg Muda.
Prior to this agreement, that whole section of the Sg Muda river channel was in the territory of Penang, said Chow, as reports surfaced of a possible legal fight over Kedah government’s current demand for payment over Penang’s extraction of water from its own side of the border.
In 1985, Kedah had agreed that Penang may draw raw water from Sg Muda, Chow added in a statement today.
This “water guarantee” was a pre-condition for a 1973 Asian Development Bank loan, arranged by the federal government for Penang to implement water supply projects.
The Kedah and Penang (Alteration of Boundary) Act 1985 (Act 325) was subsequently passed and included as an Act in Article 2 of the federal constitution.
Both Penang and Kedah have also gazetted state enactments that place the states’ boundary at the centre line of the Sg Muda channel.
“In effect, the federal government, the state government of Kedah, and the state government of Penang have duly documented the fact that part of Sg Muda flows through Penang territory,” Chow said.
“Accordingly, it may be said that both Kedah and Penang have equal riparian and constitutional rights to abstract raw water from Sg Muda.
“Therefore, there is no obligation to pay on Penang’s end,” he said. – The Vibes, March 11, 2021
