UMS’ water woes should be ending soon, says vice-chancellor

KOTA KINABALU: Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS)’s water woes will soon be a thing of the past, says its vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Kasim Mansor.

Prof Kasim said this is after the supply of some five million litres a day (MLD) of water to its campus here not soon.

He said the Sabah Water Department was currently supplying four MLD while the remaining will be provided through eight tube wells that were being installed.

Six of these wells were funded through the special RM3mil allocation announced by the Prime Minister and two by an extra RM2mil allocation by the Higher Education Ministry.

“According to our analysis, the eight tube wells drilled can generate one MLD, hence, this will be sufficient (when combined with) the supply by the water department,” he said, after a breaking of fast event at the Pusat Islam UMS on Monday (March 18).

He said the water supply could accommodate the demands of some 22,000 people in the UMS community including staff and students staying at its college residences.

The Sabah Water Department had in January said it was pushing hard to provide sufficient water to UMS.

Deputy Chief Minister III Datuk Shahelmey Yahya had said then that records showed that there was an increase in demand for water at the UMS campus last December.

He said based on Sabah Water Department records, the varsity was supplied with 2.7MLD, to meet their demand of 2.98MLD.

However, he said that UMS’ demand had increased to 5 MLD in December even before the completion of the second phase of Telibong 2 project aimed at boosting water supplies to Kota Kinabalu’s northern areas.

Shahelmey, who is Works Minister, said the water supply issue should have been overcome with the completion of the second phase of the Telibong 2 project which was commissioned in early last December.

He said, however, that some piping works still needed to be completed in order for the additional volume of treated water from Telibong 2 to be linked and released into the distribution network.

On the installation of six tube wells funded through the special RM3mil allocation, Kasim said the drilling for all the wells has been completed.

He said the contractor was in the midst of completing the reservoir system and piping work to the student residences, with three wells expected fully completed on March 26.

He added that the remaining three wells, plus two more funded through the Higher Education Ministry allocation, will only be completed in April.

The hot and dry spell, he added, had also affected two sources of water gravity systems utilised by UMS.