Malaysia needs to get to the bottom of its domestic water challenges

IT is good that Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is about to conduct a Budget review (on Tuesday) after the devastating floods in peninsular Malaysia earlier this month. He has also decided to get an expert panel to look at the causes of the floods, the worst since 1972.

The panel is to find ways to enable preventive measures to avoid a recurrence of the disaster - both in the short term and long term. It has been suggested that land clearing, especially tree logging along the river basins, has been responsible for the floods. The panel members will presumably look at this issue, although any solution that they put forward will be complicated by the fact that state governments are responsible for land management in Malaysia's federal system.

In any event, for far too long, floods have been accepted as one of the natural hazards of living in Malaysia's east coast states. This time, the floods cost more than RM2 billion (S$746 million) worth of damage to roads, bridges, power lines and other public infrastructure. Losses to households and businesses have yet to be estimated but can be expected to run in the billions as well. Palm oil producers have been particularly hard hit, and production is down a whopping 22 per cent since mid December.