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<TR>July 11, 2009
PUB REPLIES
</TR><!-- headline one : start --><TR>Need for water conservation tax
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->PUB, the national water agency, refers to Mr Paul Chan's letter on Wednesday, 'Shouldn't we pay less for consuming water?'. Mr Chan commented on the relevance of the water conservation tax and waterborne fee.
Singapore's water supply from local sources has been diversified and made more robust with the introduction of Newater and desalinated water, as well as the development of additional local catchments including Marina, Punggol and Serangoon reservoirs. PUB is confident of ensuring Singapore's self-sufficiency in water supply if need be.
Local catchment water collected through rainfall is limited and subjected to the vagaries of weather and climate change. We will need to rely more on both Newater and desalinated water in future. Desalinated water, in particular, is much more expensive than water supplied from local catchment as desalination is energy-intensive. Water conservation is still necessary to reduce our reliance on costly desalination.
Water pricing is an important and effective mechanism to get consumers to conserve water. The Government prices water not only to recover the full costs of producing and distributing it, but also to reflect the scarcity of this precious resource and the higher cost of additional water supplies.
=> Nice way of saying "we overcharge cos xxx"?
Thus, the Government levies a water conservation tax as part of the water charges. The waterborne fee and the sanitary appliance fee are to cover the cost of providing a modern sanitation system.
Singaporeans have been supportive of water conservation, and this enables us to bring down our per capita domestic water consumption from 165 litres per day in 2003 to the current 156 litres. An average household of four consumes 19 cubic m per month, and its monthly water bill, inclusive of sanitation fees, is about $42. We aim to further reduce the level of per capita domestic water consumption to 147 litres per day by 2020.
PUB thanks Mr Chan for his comments.
Chan Yoon Kum
Assistant Chief Executive
PUB
</TR>
<TR>July 11, 2009
PUB REPLIES
</TR><!-- headline one : start --><TR>Need for water conservation tax
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->PUB, the national water agency, refers to Mr Paul Chan's letter on Wednesday, 'Shouldn't we pay less for consuming water?'. Mr Chan commented on the relevance of the water conservation tax and waterborne fee.
Singapore's water supply from local sources has been diversified and made more robust with the introduction of Newater and desalinated water, as well as the development of additional local catchments including Marina, Punggol and Serangoon reservoirs. PUB is confident of ensuring Singapore's self-sufficiency in water supply if need be.
Local catchment water collected through rainfall is limited and subjected to the vagaries of weather and climate change. We will need to rely more on both Newater and desalinated water in future. Desalinated water, in particular, is much more expensive than water supplied from local catchment as desalination is energy-intensive. Water conservation is still necessary to reduce our reliance on costly desalination.
Water pricing is an important and effective mechanism to get consumers to conserve water. The Government prices water not only to recover the full costs of producing and distributing it, but also to reflect the scarcity of this precious resource and the higher cost of additional water supplies.
=> Nice way of saying "we overcharge cos xxx"?
Thus, the Government levies a water conservation tax as part of the water charges. The waterborne fee and the sanitary appliance fee are to cover the cost of providing a modern sanitation system.
Singaporeans have been supportive of water conservation, and this enables us to bring down our per capita domestic water consumption from 165 litres per day in 2003 to the current 156 litres. An average household of four consumes 19 cubic m per month, and its monthly water bill, inclusive of sanitation fees, is about $42. We aim to further reduce the level of per capita domestic water consumption to 147 litres per day by 2020.
PUB thanks Mr Chan for his comments.
Chan Yoon Kum
Assistant Chief Executive
PUB
