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Thursday, 27 August 2009

SOUND BITES (Water for Singapore)


1. Tan Sri Muhyiddin spoke the truth about my persuading him to supply water to Singapore (read here). But Lee Kuan Yew did not threaten to go to war if we did not supply water. If he had done that, I think I would have stopped any further supply.

2. We were at that time trying to be friendly with Singapore in order to solve several problems. Although raw water would be supplied at 3 cent per 1000 gallons, the understanding was that in future only treated water would be supplied when our treatment plants would be ready. We would also not buy any more treated water from Singapore at 50 cent per thousand gallons when our new treatment plant in Johore is ready.

3. When we no longer needed to buy treated water from Singapore we could raise the price of raw water to Singapore without Singapore being able to raise the price of treated water to us.

4. However when we concluded the water supply agreement Singapore raised a lot of issues regarding our railway land, the CIQ (Customs, Immigration and Quarantine) at Tanjong Pagar, training flights by Singapore warplanes over Malaysia and the Central Provident Funds.

5. At that stage I realised that being friendly with Singapore did not pay.

6. I don't know about the sale of land to Singapore but as it was agreed that a treatment plant be built by Singapore in Johore, land would have to be made available.

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