Scarce Resource ...

Today and the last couple of days were spent listening to diverse views from diverse group of people on water. But one common understanding they all have is “water is a scarce resource”. What does it mean? In short, water is a priceless resource. Some people, in fact a lot of people, says water is life. Life needs water....

That’s the global perception. How about our own local perception? First let us all be thankful, our country is blessed with abundance (but not limitless for sure) of water. We live in a country where we have among the lowest, if not the lowest water tariff in the world (yet we still have people complaining about it and a significant number of “none paying mau free saja user”). We also have the “honour” of among the highest user of water per capita per day, 450 litres per day. That’s around 300 big bottles of those sehat water. Well, if I sound bibiran about this as this was in my earlier entry, so be it.

With the above basic facts, a question that needs to be answered is how we, as a nation, value water? To answer it, let’s look at simple and basic things in our life in Brunei. The answer lies in there somewhere. When we got up in d morning, how do we brush our teeth, how do we shower, how do we wash? A large number of us have the habit of letting the water run and run and run, throwing away water. If we value something, are we willing to throw it away? NO! Most if not all will say... In fact a lot will want to collect and keep the valuable thing. Conclusion? We do not value water... simple!

But for sure everyone realises how important water is in our lives. For people who has not realise this, do imagine that you are doing your “big business” in the toilet at night. Suddenly, the electricity and water were cut off. What do wish for? If you were asked to choose either electricity or water, which one will you choose? 100% of you will ask for water to be restored. See how important water is?

The above are the normal basic things most if not all has experienced. It points to two extremes, one where we do not value water and another where we know water is important in our lives.

Let’s look it at from another perspective. All of us, it is in Bruneians’ nature, to think to the future and do our best to secure our children’s and their children’s future especially education and harta. If water is important to us and it is not limitless, don’t we want to leave some for our children and their children? I am sure, many if not all will say YES....

The question now is HOW? Everyone has a role to play. The government, thankfully, has and will continue to invest and pour millions into new water infrastructure projects and maintaining and upgrading existing water infrastructure to meet the demand for water. But the demand will always increase with increase in population. As demand increase, more and more investment will be required. The government will always play catch up. We will never be able to stop the increase. It is a lost hope it seems but there must be something we can do to slow down and reduce the increase. How? Each of us, every day, reduce our water usage. Slowly but surely, the rate of increase in water demand will slow down ...

Let’s play our role, be thankful that we have abundant of water, and value our water MORE..... after all, our children and their children deserve to live like us...

VALUE WATER ..... SAVE WATER!