KUCHING: The federal government has agreed to take concerted action to address river pollution by establishing a committee with the authority to care for rivers in the country.
Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof said with the establishment of the committee, the entire flow of rivers from upstream to downstream would be taken care of.
“This preventive measure can only be done at the community level. Therefore, we will involve all government levels, departmental levels, agency levels as well as non governmental organisation (NGOs) levels and individuals to address this issue.
“After that, the committee will report on the river pollution within two months at the state level followed by the follow-up actions that we (federal level) need to take.
“From thereon, we will organise programmes that involve the governments and also the local authorities with the support of all NGOs,” he said.
He said this after officiating at the Dragon Boat Festival at Al- Ansar Surau, Taman Yen Yen Matang here Sunday.
Fadillah pointed out that the government has started some programmes to address river pollution.
He added that as rivers have been too polluted, steps have been taken to identify which most polluted rivers can be moved to the moderately polluted category.
“We will take action on the moderately polluted so that it can be categorised in the clean river category,” he said.
He stated that part of the reason for the pollution is due to the sewage system.
Taking Kuching as an example, he said there are many projects that connect directly to the centralised system which contributed to the Sarawak river being cleaner now.
“This is because the sewage, before the water goes out into the river, is cleaned first. Meaning that, all the impurities will be cleaned, processed and so on, and only the clean water will be released. This is part of the steps we take.
“On this matter, we will give our focus to the townships first before we move to the whole of Malaysia. Miri, one of the focuses, has already started this sewer system and after that we will start in Sibu and so on,” he assured.
