Johor's current chief minister Osman Sapian announced on March 1 that Johor was planning to stop buying treated water from Singapore.

This announcement comes in the midst of several disputes Malaysia has raised with Singapore since the Pakatan Harapan took power in May 2018.

Most recently, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said it was "morally wrong" for "rich" Singapore to buy raw water at 3 sen per 1,000 gallons from "poor" Malaysia.

He also attributed Singapore's rapid progress to the fact that Malaysia supplied it raw water.

This sparked a response from Singapore's foreign affairs minister Vivian Balakrishnan who said that Mahathir's comments were a "red herring" and clarified that the issue was not about who was richer or poorer, but about the fundamental principle of respecting the sanctity of agreements.

2003 or 2019 plan?

Osman announced the plan to stop buying treated water from Singapore after attending a special session with Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and his Cabinet at Putrajaya.

Not giving much details, Osman said: "But this is still in the planning stage and I can not share the details at this point, until this plan can be implemented in the near future".

It is unclear, however, if this plan to stop buying treated water from Singapore was a continuation of a 2003 plan, which also saw Johor wanting to stop buying treated water from Singapore.

According to The Star, in a July 2003 article titled, "Johor: We'll stop buying", Johor had announced it would stop buying treated water from Singapore that month.

Two months later, however, in a September 2003 The Star article, "Johor to continue buying water from Singapore", it was reported that Johor had put on hold its plans to stop buying treated water from Singapore.

It explained it would only do so when the Semangar Water Treatment Plant was completed.

The plant was scheduled to be completed in end-2003, but instead that date got pushed to end-2004.

In February 2004, The Star proclaimed emphatically, "Water treatment plant ends reliance on Singapore".

Five months later, in May 2004, in yet another The Star article, "Johor to stop buying water from Singapore in August", it was reported that Johor would stop buying treated water from Singapore by August 2004.

The report also mentioned the hopes that Johor would be able to sell "up to 100mgd" of treated water to Singapore by 2011.

Currently, by way of the 1962 Water Agreement, Singapore is obliged to provide 5 million gallons of treated water a day to Johor.

In reality, however, Singapore supplies 16 million gallons of treated water daily to Johor at their request.