Air Selangor last week announced that 998 areas in seven districts will experience disruptions to their water supply between Oct 13 and Oct 16, with the Sungai Selangor Water Treatment Plant Phase 1 (SSP1 WTP) to be shut down for upgrading and maintenance work.
While this will no doubt inconvenience affected residents in the area, one hotelier said he will have to fork out RM15,000 in order to make sure his hotel’s water tanks don’t run dry, and that other operators are facing similar costs.
Azhar Mohammad, general manager of Seri Pacific Hotel Kuala Lumpur, said with close to 300 rooms and the number of guests now picking up, he will likely have to rent “at least five water tank lorries” at a cost of RM3,500 each in order to ensure the hotel doesn’t run out of water while the treatment plant is shut down.
“Our main water tanks always need to stay filled at a certain level in order for us to pump water to the hotel. If it drops below it, it becomes difficult for our pumps to supply water, so we’ll need to have these trucks on standby to keep topping up our tanks.
“The total cost of the lorries will work out to at least RM70 per room, and during the current season when we are already selling rooms at a low rate, this will really hurt hotels affected by the disruption.”
Air Selangor CEO Suhaimi Kamaralzaman had earlier explained that the work had been scheduled for 2019 and last year but was postponed following the water pollution incidents that caused a number of unscheduled disruptions.
However, Azhar questioned why the upgrades had to come at a time when hotels were just beginning to get back on their feet.
“Why could this not have been done during the movement restrictions, why now? There are many other hotel operators who, like us, are already beginning to book their tanks in preparation.
“We need room to breathe here. We just spent so long without any business, our oxygen level had dropped so to speak, and just as we are beginning to breathe easy again, this happens.”
The water disruptions will affect some parts of the Petaling, Klang, Shah Alam, Gombak, Kuala Lumpur, Hulu Selangor, Kuala Langat, and Kuala Selangor districts, with the downtime and restoration of supply to vary from area to area.