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High rates until flats get own
meters
The Star 1/11/2006
SHAH ALAM: Those living in high-rise residential units and quarters provided
by government agencies and estates will continue to pay commercial rates for
their water until they get individual meters for their units.
The state government is working on a set of guidelines to allow this group
of consumers to be charged domestic rates, which are lower.
It would not be easy getting individual meters either, as the consumers
would need all the residents in the area and the management companies to
agree to it first.
Even then the applications can still be rejected, as provisions under the
Sale and Purchase Agreement and the piping system for the building must
allow for individual meters to be set up.
Selangor Infrastructure and Public Utilities Committee chairman Datuk Fatah
Iskandar Fatah said those living in condominiums, apartments, low-cost
flats, and government and estate quarters had been paying the same rates as
commercial users all this while.
“We (the Selangor government) have been receiving complaints from this group
for many years and we are now in the process of coming up with guidelines
that will allow them to apply for individual meters so that they can be
charged domestic rates,” he told reporters here yesterday.
He said the state government and Syabas were working on the guidelines,
expected to be ready “in a matter of weeks”.
The account is under a company or organisation and so the rates are based on
commercial rates – RM2.07 per cubic metre (instead of the domestic rate of
57 sen) for the first 35 cubic metres, and RM2.28 per cubic metre
thereafter.
Syabas chief executive officer Ruslan Hassan said the company wanted to
ensure individual meters were installed.
The company has been caught in a bind many times when management companies
for high-rise residential units fail to settle arrears as cutting the supply
to the bulk meter would leave all the residents, including those who have
been promptly paying their bills, without any supply. |
