Kota Kinabalu: The frequent water disruptions at the Kota Kinabalu Industrial Park (KKIP) in recent years is a bane for investors, said a manufacturer of bottled drinking water.
Life Water Industries Sdn Bhd (Life Water), which operates two bottled drinking water manufacturing plants at Industrial Zone 4 since 12 years ago and another plant which was set up at Industrial Zone 8 four years ago, claimed last March, investors experienced disruption to their operation and business due to water shortage.
Its Managing Director Liaw Hen Kong (pic) said the latest episode of water supply disruption occurred on Jan 4 due to a leaked pipe along Jalan Sapanggar, near Kg Bandulan, here. On Jan 9, repair works are still on-going and the supply issue had not been resolved.
He lamented that treated water is the lifeline of the company.
“Without incoming treated water from the State Water Department (JANS), our company’s operations come to a standstill for as long as the outage lasts. Production machines are left idle and so are the workers. And, since there is no production, there is no product to be delivered, so delivery vehicles are idle too. Business suffers while the company continues to bear the operation cost and losses.
“The alternative source of treated water during an outage is to buy treated water on daily basis to be transported by tankers to the plants but the supply is hardly able to meet the company’s requirement of 90 m3/hr on average, for both plants,” he said in a statement Monday.
He said on top of business loss, equally concerning for the company was how such a disruption negatively impacts the company in other significant ways, such as its inability to fulfill its commitment to customers for consistent and on-time delivery of products and services.
This could potentially harm the company’s product brand and image that the company works so hard to preserve especially given the highly competitive market, he added.
“Life Water had made the decision to invest in an industrial park which typically has the integrated infrastructure, features and amenities to support the industry, which in turn enables a company to boost its productivity and what it can offer for long-term sustainable growth.
“However, it is a source for grave concern when there is lack of reliable treated water supply and more so, when the demand for treated water grows in tandem with the State’s economic development,” he said.
Liaw was aware of the various challenges faced by JANS in meeting industry demands.
“The loss of up to eight million litres of water daily contributed to the non-revenue water through rampant theft and illegal connections in the Sepanggar illegal immigrants squatters’ areas. Coupled with issues of aging pipes, burst pipes and pump issues, they contribute to water woes and thus, production downtime for the industries,” he said.
Liaw pointed that these are serious issues that warrant a special task force to be formed, comprising the Industrial Development Ministry, JANS and relevant agencies to seek long-solution to the problems expeditiously.
He emphasised the importance of sustainable growth of companies which will earn investors’ confidence, which will auger well for KKIP as a domestic and foreign investment destination.
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