Taps Are Dry But Kedah MB Condescendingly Told Kedahans to be Patient.

Kedah MB Is Doing it Again. Taps Are Dry But He Condescendingly Offered Kedahans Free Advice Asking them to be Patient.
By Mihar Dias
(C) Copyright May 2022

Kedah is facing a severe crisis of water shortage. They are without adequately treated drinking water most of the time. The taps are running dry. Baling area which is at the very end of the supply line is the worse affected. But the arrogant Menteri Besar (MB), Ahmad Sanusi condescendingly advised people in Kedah to be patient.

He told the people of Kedah, “The way to face this crisis is to be patient, just like me”.

He treats the rakyat like school children. Be patient like him, come on!

The reply we heard from everyone we talked to is for how long does Sanusi expect them to be patient. How long must they wait? How much longer do they have to put up with your incompetency, Sanusi? You have been in office for two years now. Did you do enough to help the people of Kedah to get sufficient clean water?

The people want to know! One state government after another had given them the same assurance. But the water supply has never improved significantly over the years. Please don’t blame the previous government. You are the head of the current state government.

This is the 65th year of our independence yet we cannot provide clean treated water consistently for this tiny state of Kedah with a population of a little over 2 million.

Sanusi went on, “Of course, they will retort by saying I can talk as I still have running water but what choice do we have?”

Stop boasting about running water in your government mansion. That’s arrogance (riak) and “takbur”. If they had a choice the people of Kedah would trade you off with another better MB right now! If you were a soccer player they would have sold you to another club already.

But the rakyat does not have any say on your appointment. It was your party that nominated you. In this case it’s PAS. Neither were there any other top-notch candidates besides Sanusi, to choose from that pool made available by the party. So, we are stuck with Sanusi for now.

Let’s not talk about PAS. Knowing the leadership, they would probably ask everyone in Kedah to pray for God to install bigger and better piping. You’d probably need bigger and better reservoirs too. Why not pray for that as well.

“Although everyone wants the matter to be resolved soon, unfortunately that is not the case”, Sanusi commented on the problem of water supply plaguing the state.

This bad service had been going on for years. Why didn’t they fix it sooner? Privatising water supply was no help either. It had only enriched the shareholders and paid its management big fat salaries. The ordinary man still gets his water from the miserably equipped facilities.

But then Sanusi had the audacity to compare his own pathetic water services with that of Selangor. Kedah is world apart from Selangor.

Selangor’s population of 6.56 million, is more than three times that of Kedah. They have invested millions into improving water treatment facilities for Selangor and Kuala Lumpur. They had their troubles but they had resolved most of it.

Sanusi said “Even the developed state of Selangor has water problems. I’m not trying to downplay our weaknesses but rest assured that Kedah’s water woes will be resolved in three years.”

In THREE years. What are they supposed to do in the meantime? Wait for the rain and hope to enjoy God’s abundant supply of water from the sky?

Hello Sanusi, using “tai chi” to deflect woes in Kedah by bringing in water problems faced by Selangor is nonsensical.

In actual fact, the state government was caught unprepared so he gave the people an assurance that they were in the “midst” of planning but had not finalised a solid strategy to resolve Kedah water woes now and for the future.

That is a typical answer from a politician of Sanusi’s calibre whenever caught by surprise (or with pants down!) he offers some lame excuse.

To make matters worse at the time of writing this article (9 May) an embankment close to the catchment area near Bukit Pinang reservoir, collapsed causing disruption for a large segment (60,000 households) of the state (Kota Setar) including water supply to the MB’s residence at Mentalon, a short distance from the city centre of Alor Setar. Another 15,000 households from another district are also affected.

Didn’t we warn you about “riak” or “bongkak”? God has spoken against an arrogant MB, like you.

Now Sanusi, you may be able to better empathise (from the word empathy) with the ordinary Kedahan.

Now you can feel their sufferings. Try walking in their shoes. You may start by going to work without a shower in the morning, bro! Then talk to them about being patient without daily showers.

Oh, by the way, don’t go jumping into the Kedah River for a quick bath. What I meant is you might be tempted to take a bath in the river that flows behind your state government mansion once your taps dried up. Don’t do it.

It’s too polluted. You might just suffocate from the poisons that the state had allowed to flow into that river.

Speaking of which when are you planning to clean up the rivers to ensure the state gets a continuous supply of unpolluted raw water for the reservoirs.

You know full well, that since early this year, several areas in Kedah especially the rural areas have faced constant water supply disruptions. The hot dry season brought about shortages in many community water reserves.

As a result, many people in Kedah have turned to alternative sources, instead of relying on the inefficient supply from the privatised water authority. They have lost confidence in the ability of the state government to provide them with this very basic need.

However, netizens, like Imran Md Rais, (quoted by Focus Malaysia) who are exasperated with the MB have spoken out against him. He wrote, “If you don’t have any idea on how to resolve a problem, let others who can to take over your job”. We are sure many more in the state share his views. There are also plenty of candidates out there ready to take over.

But others, like Netizen Ismail bin A Aziz (also quoted by Focus Malaysia) went a bit further warning Sanusi, for treating Kedahans like schoolchildren. “When the time comes, Kedahans will treat you like a child. Just you wait”.

Anyway, Kedahan may not have long to wait to change their MB. This might happen sooner than what the MB promised about solving the water crisis.

Sanusi had asked people to be patient for the next three years to solve water supply problems. But he might be gone in two years or even sooner.

We shall have to wait and see how political parties work out their differences at the national level. Or more specifically whom they’ll put in charge of Kedah next.

But for now Kedah is quite tired of this condescending MB who seems to treat the people like school kids.

Mihar Dias is a content writer under Headliner by Newswav, a programme where content creators get to tell their unique stories through articles and at the same time monetize their content within the Newswav app.
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