KUALA NERUS: Cloud seed­ing oper­a­tions will be con­duc­ted in Johor, Kedah and Perak after water levels at sev­eral dams dropped due to pro­longed hot weather, says Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

The Deputy Prime Min­is­ter said the oper­a­tions will be car­ried out from today until Sunday.

“Although dam levels remain at the alert stage, early action is needed to pre­vent them from reach­ing crit­ical levels,” he told report­ers after a Rural and Regional Devel­op­ment Min­istry retreat, Bernama repor­ted.

Ahmad Zahid, who is also National Dis­aster Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee chair­man, said cloud seed­ing will take place at the Upper Lay­ang, Pulai 1 and Machap dams in Johor today, Thursday and Sunday.

There will be cloud seed­ing exer­cises at the Pedu, Muda and Ahning dams in Kedah, as well as Bukit Merah Dam in Perak on Fri­day and Sat­urday.

On another mat­ter, Ahmad Zahid said com­pan­ies owned by agen­cies under his min­istry must oper­ate as com­pet­it­ive, sus­tain­able entit­ies with a per­form­ance-driven approach that deliv­ers tan­gible bene­fits to the people.

He said in a com­pet­it­ive cor­por­ate envir­on­ment, every lead­er­ship team must be brave in mak­ing stra­tegic decisions for the sus­tain­ab­il­ity of the organ­isa­tion.

“I am con­fid­ent that with bold lead­er­ship and con­sist­ent dis­cip­lined exe­cu­tion, the min­istry’s agency-owned com­pan­ies can become cata­lysts for a more pro­gress­ive and sus­tain­able rural eco­nomy,” he said, adding that these points were con­veyed dur­ing the retreat.

Ahmad Zahid said trans­par­ent, high-integ­rity and high-per­form­ance gov­ernance must under­pin com­pany man­age­ment.

He said the earlier trans­ition from a cost centre to a profit centre was start­ing to yield res­ults, with sub­si­di­ar­ies report­ing higher rev­enue and stronger profits.

“However, these achieve­ments are only a found­a­tion for fur­ther pro­gress.

“The next pri­or­ity is to ensure all profits are trans­lated into bene­fits for the people through optimal asset util­isa­tion, strength­en­ing the rural industry value chain, and lever­aging data as a new source of rev­enue gen­er­a­tion.”