A former Singapore's Straits Times journalist said that the National Economic Action Council (NEAC) had got it wrong when it used excerpts of the her article to justify Malaysia's position on the water talks dispute with the republic.

NEAC, in two of its newspaper advertisements, had selected a quote from an article written by ex-journalist Irene Ng to argue that Malaysia had not agreed to a new price during a meeting between Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Singapore Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew three years ago.

The two leaders had held talks in August 2000 to discuss Malaysia's request for a hike in the price of raw water - now at 3 sen per 1,000 gallon - which the country sells to the island state.

While Singapore contended that Malaysia had agreed to a new price of 45 sen per 1,000 gallon at the 2000 meeting, this was however disputed by Malaysia.

In the on-going water dispute, Singapore has claimed that Malaysia went back to the negotiation table later to ask for an increase of up to RM6 per 1,000 gallon when it had consented to the 45 sen price.

But Malaysia said it had never acceded to the 45 sen per 1,000 gallon deal.

Dates wrong

Ng, who is now a Singaporean parliamentarian, pointed out today that NEAC had wrongly dated her article in two advertisements.

"The NEAC dated this article Aug 15, 2000 in its earlier advertisement and Aug 16, 2000 in a later advertisement.

"Both dates are wrong. The article was in fact published on Sept 15, 2001, one whole year later."

The disputed statements in Ng's article - headlined 'Singapore-KL pact's success hinges on details' - had indicated that the two leaders were still negotiating and no agreement had been reached on a price for the water.

"The agreement reached by Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew and Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad last Tuesday is now being filled out by officials," wrote Ng.

"The details they have to tackle include the price of water under the current agreement and the ratio of raw to treated water beyond 2061" (emphasis added by NEAC).

The highlighted section of the quote was intended to prove that Mahathir never agreed to any particular water price with Lee, as claimed by the Singaporeans.

Different circumstances

However, Ng reiterated the Singapore government's position that a price of 45 sen had indeed been agreed upon at the 2000 meeting between the two leaders.

She said her article was written after the second meeting between the two leaders a year later in Sept 2001, and her comments were reflective of different circumstances.

"By then, Malaysia had changed its mind on the 45 sen price of water,"she said.

"Whether or not NEAC is correct in claiming that Malaysia never agreed with Singapore on the price of current water, it cannot cite my article, with the wrong date, to support this claim," she added.

The water spat has grown to alarming proportions over the past months and the government had recently rebutted - via full-page newspaper advertisements - Singapore's claim that Malaysia kept changing its mind on the price of water.

Early this year, Singapore published a booklet which blamed Malaysia for the on-going dispute over the price of raw water that Singapore buys from Malaysia.

In response, Malaysia took out an extensive media campaign and published its own booklet claiming, in turn, that Singapore refused to pay a fair price for the water.