Long before then, it wants not only to draw up a fresh agreement but also to increase and diversify the sources of water, including desalination, recycling and a pipeline from Sumatra.

But Malaysia, its historical supplier, remains the biggest of all its options and hopes for a long-term water commitment at an agreeable rate.

The fear is that with Malaysia's own rising needs, it may in future not be able to supply half Singapore's needs as it has been doing.

Despite turning to desalination and recycling, fast-improving technology and declining costs, Singapore has said the aim is not self-sufficiency. At one time, the costs or extracting water was exorbitant.

What has created a sense of urgency to its search was a recent threat by Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid to form an alliance with Malaysia to cut off water supply to Singapore to teach it a lesson.

He said he had made the proposal to Dr Mahathir Mohamad during a breakfast meeting that the two Malay governments jointly control Singapore's water supply.

"If we hold the water for a moment, they will have no water to drink," he said. "We should not be afraid. Our interests should come first before the interests of other people."

Within days more than 1,000 readers wrote to the Straits Times, most of them calling for urgency to be injected into the search for alternative water sources.

"What is holding up the water-desalination plants?" asked one well-known letter writer. "We must be kept informed. We cannot rely on unpredictable sources."

To put things in perspective, the Malaysian government has never threatened to cut water supply but various UMNO circles have made frequent calls for it during times of conflict.

The government here has repeatedly assured Singaporeans there is no supply problem; the water agreements with Malaysia will expire only in 2061 and negotiations are under way for an extension.

From this, we can see that the government is doing their best to ensure that Singapore has enough water supply. Other than the desalination plants, the Singapore government has tried to come up with many other possible policies such as the NEWater, to provide save drinking water for Singaporeans. This is to ensure that at the end of the agreement with Malaysia, we can prove to them that we can provide enough for our own use. It is also to ensure that we do not need to rely on them or other countries for the water supply. This can ensure that if anything was to happen to the agreement, we would not "have no water to drink".

Although the Malaysian government has ensured that they will provide us with nough water for consumption, we shoul not only rely on them. We need to ensure that we ourselves can survive on our own. Thus, I think that the Singapore government has done a great job in ensuring they fufill the citizens needs. This is an example of not only forward looking, but also taking care of the welfare of the people. Therefore I strongly believe that the Singaporean government portrays good governance.