Mustapha checking on the water from the tube well near Tun Pengiran Ahmad Raffae residential hostel.
KOTA KINABALU (Jan 13): Four water sources have been identified in Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS), said Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Datuk Ts. Mustapha Sakmud.
He said this to reporters after attending a briefing on the progress of the on-going proposed six tube wells to tap underground water worth RM3 million announced by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim on May 31, 2023.
“From the briefing by the geologist earlier, so far we have identified four water sources around UMS and the drilling process will be done as soon as possible to ensure that there is indeed a water source according to the geologist’s study.
“And when the water source is sufficient, then we will build a filter plant so that we can distribute waters to the students’ hostels,” he said.
According to Mustapha who is the Sepanggar Member of Parliament, there will be a total of six tube wells under the RM3 million allocation, that will be constructed by two appointed contractors.
With the four water sources identified, four tube wells are expected to be drilled soon.
“I will monitor this matter every week and I want to make sure that the contractors comply with the contractual agreement.
“We will make sure that these four tube wells are the priority here. However, the remaining two water resources need to be found quickly so that we can meet the contractual agreement,” he added.
The briefing also attended by UMS Vice Chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Kasim Mansur.
Mustapha also stressed that there is no misappropriation of the RM3 million fund that was channelled to the Sabah Implementation Coordination Unit (ICU) for payment to contractors.
He stressed that the fund had been used best according to the financial procedures and applauded UMS, as the implementing agency for emphasising the management of this project in accordance with the financial procedures that have been set.
As for the recent additional RM2 million allocations announced by the Higher Education Ministry, Mustapha said the fund was meant for piping works, connecting water from the tube wells to the hostels.
Following the visit of Minister of Higher Education Datuk Seri Zambry Abdul Kadir last week who was welcomed by undergraduates and staged a protest against water supply in the university, it became a national issue.
Mustapha said that the Prime Minister had mentioned the incident as the first agenda during the Finance Ministry’s event and at the Cabinet meeting.
He said the issue was also recorded in the meeting minutes, therefore there should be follow-up actions.
“Both PM and minister had specifically requested me to go to the ground and make a weekly report.
“This issue has a sense of urgency and should be treated as ‘urgent and important’,” he added.
Despite the effort by the university to build tube wells, Mustapha stressed that the project is only a short-term solution to the water shortage issue and it is the responsibility of Sabah State Water Department (JANS) to supply sufficient water to UMS.
For the record, the entire UMS needs approximately five million liters water per day (5mld), however, recent supplies from JANS did not exceed 1mld.
“With the six tube wells, UMS could only have 1.5mld to 2mld, so we are still short. JANS needs to find a long-term solution and the state government needs to monitor this,” he added.
Earlier in the briefing, geologist Mohd Baba Mok said four water sources have been identified from a total of 12 geophysical survey lines conducted by two appointed contractors, Edaran Jaya Corporation and HB Waja Sdn Bhd.
“Six geophysical survey lines conducted by Edaran Jaya Corporation have identified two water sources in Line 2 and Line 4, while HB Waja Sdn Bhd identified another two in Line 7 and Line 8.
“These four areas are the proposed locations for drilling of the groundwater tube wells,” he said.
After the briefing, Mustapha visited the existing tube well near Tun Pengiran Ahmad Raffae residential hostel.
The RM350,000 tube well was built with UMS internal resources. It currently supplies water to two buildings.
