He said only if the state needed to buy more than what is agreed upon would it be obliged to inform Singapore.

"If Johor needs to buy additional treated water above the maximum supply as agreed upon in the existing agreement, than we need to notify Singapore. Otherwise there is no need to.

" In fact, we have notified the island republic when we tabled the 2001 State Budget at the State Legislative Assembly recently that the buying of treated water from Singapore would end in 2003.

"We have given Singapore a two-year notice on the matter," said Ghani.

But if the Singapore goverment still needed an official notice they could write in to the Federal or State Governmnent for clarification.

Johor's decision to stop buying treated water from Singapore in 2003, according to Ghani was because the M$650 million Semanggar water treatment plant, located near Kota Tinggi, would be completed by the end of 2002.

Ghani said the Johor's water project would help reduce Singapore's burden to supply treated water to Johor and it could channel the excessive water for its own development purposes.

He said Malaysia (and Johor) would honour its two contracts expiring in 20ll and 206l for the bulk of its raw water supply from Johor.

Recently Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was quoted to have said that the Singapore goverment had yet to receive official notice from the Johor goverment on it's decision to stop buying treated water from the Republic after 2002.

"If they feel they do not need it (to buy from us) that's fine with us too. But we had yet to receive official notice on the matter," Lee had said.

At present, Johor sells 9l0 million litres per day of raw water to Singapore and buy back l30 million litres of treated water from the republic.

Raw water is sold at three sen per 4540 litres and treated water bought at 50sen for the same volume, incurring Johor a deficit of about M$3.l million annually.

"The Semanggar plant has the capacity to produce l60 million litres of treated water per day to accommodate consumers in Johor Baru, Kota Tinggi and Pontian," said Ghani after presenting Hari Raya 'gifts' to more than l000 people and students in the Tangkak at the Jalan Payamas mosque here last night.

Ghani said the population of these three districts would reach one million in the next three years with Johor Baru having more than 800,000 people.

Currently, the districts are dependent on water supplied by Singapore's Public Utilities Board from its plants in Skudai and Gunung Pulai, both in Johor.

Ghani said Johor had ample raw water supply and also expertise to build water treatment plants and these long-term development projects would continue to meet the needs of consumers and State industrial progress.