KUALA LUMPUR: Fitters Diversified Bhd is calling on the government to provide a solution to raise funds to overhaul the water piping system in the country. Its managing director Datuk Richard Wong pointed to news reports highlighting over 42,000km of old asbestos-cement (AC) pipes must be replaced to reduce leakages and water wastage.

“We used to hear from the ministry that replacing old AC pipes requires a funding of RM60 billion to RM70 billion. Last year, the minister said they needed around RM150 billion to RM160 billion for a holistic solution for the water industry, across Malaysia,” he told reporters after the group’s annual general meeting here yesterday.

“Interestingly, we were told they are short of money and are now agreeable to look at private funding if possible. But we could not work out yet on how the private funding can happen.

“They (the government) should come up with some form of private funding to speed up the process of meeting this funding requirement. Because it’s a shame — many existing pipes cause a lot of wastage because the pipes are leaking. All those water leaking through the pipes is treated water,” said Wong.

Besides theft, pipe leakage is among the main causes of non-revenue water (NRW) and also a factor in low water reserve margins. NRW is treated water produced but is “lost” before reaching consumers.

Wong said it is high time to replace existing pipes as the wasted treated water amounts to billions of ringgit annually. Therefore, he said it is better to quickly deal with the problem. “These are actual needs of the country. They need to implement this infrastructure. Why talk about highways, railways and other sophisticated things when basic things such as water is still facing problems?.”

Wong said Fitters Diversified has invested heavily on its loss-making pipe manufacturing and distribution division. He is optimistic that the rising number of water infrastructure projects locally will help the division to break even this year. “Generally, we are a pipe manufacturer. Our job is to sell pipes and send water to people. But because we are experienced contractors, we were encouraged to also participate in some of these [water-related infrastructure] projects. We are seriously looking into it and are actually building quite a strong team of engineers to get ready to participate.”

In the first quarter ended March 31, 2019, Fitters Diversified’s net profit jumped 77.7% to RM2.46 million from RM1.39 million a year ago, attributing this to its HYPRO PVC-O pipes manufacturing division that improved substantially to a profit before tax of about RM400,000 versus a loss before tax of RM1.7 million previously. The division’s revenue grew 392.8% to RM9.2 million from RM1.9 million previously, on higher PVC-O pipe deliveries. The group’s quarterly revenue, however, declined slightly by 9.8% to RM69.78 million from RM77.39 million last year.