The National Water Service Commission (Span) has come out to support Water, Land and Natural Resources Minister Xavier Jayakumar's statement that it is safe to drink directly from the tap.

"Span fully supports Xavier's statement during the Dewan Rakyat sitting recently that it is safe to drink directly from the water supply system."

"In Malaysia, the treated water supplied to the public complies with the quality standards for drinking water as set by the Health Ministry based on the guidelines issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO)," said Span chief executive officer Mohd Ridhuan Ismail in a statement today.

He added that the water operators, Health Ministry and Span also conducted continuous checks to ensure that the water is safe and up to standards.

Under the National Water Quality Standards programme, the Health Ministry periodically takes samples from the plant and distribution system based on the parameters to be tested.

"No less than 38 physical, chemical, microbiology parameters are analysed, in cooperation with the Chemistry Department, starting from the intake at the water treatment plant to the distribution system.

"There are 6,108 sampling stations at all 500 water treatment plants and distribution system with more than 186,000 samples nationwide," he said.

Mohd Ridhuan also said the test showed the supplied water was free of E-Coli.

He said chlorination was the most effective way of ridding the bacteria.

"Therefore, there is no issue of E-Coli being in the water supply system that could harm one's health," he said.