The Billion Ringgit Water Deal

I was beginning to wonder what happened to the newly elected opposition Petaling Jaya Utara MP, Tony Pua. There had not been much news about him since he won the seat (to me, at least... maybe I've not really read enough). There was this great hype about him selling off his business to join politics to serve us people. However, I am not really surprised to find that he is one of the mastermind behind Selangor state's planned acquisition of the water bodies in the state given his business background.

The current opposition held state government made an offerring of RM4.6 billion to the four concessionaires in the state without buying over their liabilities. Three of the concessionaires rejected the state government's offer. During the midst of negotiations, Pengurusan Aset Air Bhd (PAAB), a unit of Minister of Finance Inc. came out with an offer of RM5 billion - RM400 million more than what the state government offerred. I guess we know whose brilliant idea this might be. Kakacaucau!

Looks like the federal government ran out of ideas on how to serve the public better and instead hijacked the opposition's idea on the planned acquisition to do the same thing - to prevent the contractual tariff hike of 31%. The federal government claimed that the negotiations started back in September 2008. So if this is true, it might be that the opposition who are the one that stole the idea. Hmmm... who do you trust? ;)

I don't really know what I am saying in the business sense here but I think this about sums up the situation. Much more details at Star Online.

ps I'm a bit amused, though, that previously, the federal government went on a privatising spree and now attempting to buy them back... a way of pumping in more money for...?

Update 28 February 2009: My bud AndrewK's pointed me to another link with some scary news. This link appears to have reports that conflicts with the one in Star Online (link in two paragraphs above). You be the judge who is lying and who is more accurate. The truth is out there! I hope we Selangor people are not going to die a death of dehydration.