Living In Holy Shit

After all that crap about the imbecilic nature of the Selangor State Government when it comes to handling the water shortage fiasco, I saw a nice tweet by my wife about the number of sewage treatment plants.  It read:

“Kelantan has only 11 sewage treatment plants. Even Perlis has 33. Gulp. Johor has over 600”

“Wow!” I thought.  But since it was early in the morning I thought it was about the number of water treatment plants, as Kelantan has a poor treated water supply coverage as well.  Then I re-read the tweet and I realised how for the past 22 years, the Kelantanese State Government has been shirking its duties in ensuring the basic human rights to clean water supply as well as sanitation.

22 years.

Let us compare the states mentioned above in terms of population count versus the number of sewage treatment plants made available in the respective states.

Johor had 3.23 million in 2010.  Perlis, possibly the state with the least resources, had 198,000 in 2010.  Kelantan 1.46 million in 2010.

Johor has 600 sewage treatment plants for its 3.23 million inhabitants – that translates as having 5,383 persons per sewage treatment plant.  In Perlis, the ratio is 1:6,000; while in Kelantan it is 1:132,727.

Let us go by size of each state: Johor is 19,210 sq.km; Perlis is 821 sq.km; and Kelantan is 15,099 sq.km in size.  The ration of kilometer square per sewage treatment plant is 1:32; in Perlis it is 1:25; but in Kelantan it is 1:1,373.  So, one sewage treatment plant in Kelantan has to cover an area that is 1,373 sq.km, and crap from 32,727 132,727 people.

Little wonder you get headlines like: Tetracycline Resistant Cholera in Kelantan (1998); Cholera Outbreak In Tumpat, Kelantan (1990); Cholera Cases in Kelantan Continue to Rise (2000).  I can go through the tens of headlines right up till June 2012, but I just want to give examples on how crappy shit already is in Kelantan.  People die from the outbreaks above, yet the Kelantan State Government behaves nonchalantly.

Of course, the holier-than-thou attitude the Kelantan State Government adopts does not help the situation; what makes it worse is when voters have been brainwashed to think that whatever Cholera-shit that hit them is a test from God.

Unless the voters are given a knock on the head, my guess is they will continue to live in Holy Shit for another 22 more years.