Adnan: Pahang government open to discussions with Azmin

(The Star) – The Pahang government is willing to discuss the water deal made with the Selangor government, says Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Adnan Yaakob.

But he disagreed with Selangor Mentri Besar Azmin Ali’s request to make the deals public, saying that only Putrajaya has the final say on the matter.

“I would like to sit down and discuss with Azmin on the agreement to ensure a smooth implementation of the deal. But, not everything proposed by them (Selangor) should be considered, such as his (Azmin’s) call to make public details of the agreements.

“As far as I know, the contracts are classified under the Official Secrets Act (OSA), and it is up to Putrajaya to make a decision,” he said when asked whether the Pahang government would support Azmin’s call to allow full disclosure of the contracts for the sake of transparency.

Adnan questioned Azmin’s true intentions for making the call to make the deals public.

However, he said Azmin was always welcome to visit Pahang and see the progress of the four packages under the Pahang-Selangor Raw Water Transfer Project.

“I hope he would put aside political differences, be mindful of the people’s welfare and work towards resolving Selangor’s water woes.”

Adnan said the Pahang government would still honour the agreement on the raw water transfer project signed in 2007 to sell raw water to Selangor at 10 sen per cubic metre.

In September, former Selangor mentri besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim signed an agreement between the Federal Government and Selangor to restructure the state’s water services industry.

Under the accord, a new entity – Air Selangor Sdn Bhd – will take over the operations of treatment plants and supply services that were previously managed by four companies.

In Klang, Azmin again made his call to the Federal Government to publicly disclose the water restructuring agreement made during his predecessor’s time.

“The documents should not be subject to the OSA because the people have the right to know what the deal was all about,” he said after visiting Pulau Ketam yesterday.