Public Wastages Must be Curbed in Selangor Itself

 

While we are talking about leakages in the civil services, such wastage of funds is also happening even with local councilors and state assemblymen in Selangor.           

              This is interesting since Selangor is under Pakatan Harapan, and of all things, Selangor should emulate Penang in paying back debts to the Federal Government.

              The Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim should have access to the state’s debts compared to Penang’s repayment of loans it had taken over the past 10 years from the Federal Government. Both are, after all, under PH.

Banners for Every Festive Season

              Banners are a common thing these days, and since Pakatan Harapan now controls the state’s budget, money is wasted away in printing banners and more banners.

What a waste of public fund and resources. Elizabeth Wong and Amirudin Shari should be on the ground more often, while Calvin Cheong should  coordinate with the local state assembly to cut down on wastages. All three including the state exco in charge of local government should be on the ground for all these years that they have been running the state government to see what is happening on the ground. Where are they all these years when people complained?

              Whether it is for festive season (there are several each year) or an official occasion, such as the National Independence Day or Malaysia Day, banners appear at every nook and corner that you will not miss.

              Even a briefing on cleanliness for two hours, the local councillor Calvin Cheong spent money on printing a banner. I wonder how many people even turned up for his briefing held at a coffee shop between 2.00 pm to 4.00pm, when most people are at work.

Perhaps, this is for some syiok sendiri

              Here, if I do not raise it up, there will be more duplication of banners. For this Chinese New Year alone, I have spotted two different versions of Chinese New Year greetings one by Bukit Lanjan, Elizabeth Wong and Menteri Besar Amirudin Shari, and another by Calvin Cheong and Amirudin Shari.

In both banners, the newly elected Member of Parliament, Gobind Singh Deo is featured. It is obvious that Gobind’s portrait was just montaged into the design judging by his attire.

I have heard enough complaints on many occasions that Wong is hardly seen on the ground these days, compared to her first term when she was given the chance to serve as state exco.

According to my sources, this happened right after the Sheraton Move. I would like to ask Wong if there is any truth in what is rumoured that she was among the people who attended the Sheraton Move. Be honest to face the people.

              As for Amirudin, he does not even squeak when the issues relating to my Zone were brought to his attention; neither did he respond to the press and environmental NGOs despite being told to do so by Anwar when Anwar was still Opposition leader and William Leong recently just before GE15 in his capacity as Treasurer of PKR.

              Another big wastage by Majlis Perbandaran Selayang (MPS) which I observed recently (there are many such wastages) is the placement of signboards. The reason for these signboards is to help visitors especially in the 90s when there was no Google Map or Waze.

Even Deputy Minister of Housing Azmi Khalid who was supposed to come to the ground thought the housing estate was somewhere in Ampang, some 20km away.

Each time residents of the housing estate complained, the local council would take the oppprtunity to put one or two signboards, but at all the wrong locations. At the last count, there are about seven signboards yet if I were a visitir, I would never be able to get the correct direction to the housing estate if I had depended on these signboards.

They are either hidden away and covered by trees or other obstacles or what’s worse is, until you have made the decision to turn into a road, you would not know the signboard is there.

              This is my latest observation, when I merely highlighted that this signboard at the junction turning into Phase Two of the housing estate had to be repainted as it was turning rusty. Instead of repainting it, the signboard was relocated to another road immediately after turning into the junction.

All the Council needed to do was to repaint this signboard; instead, the council relocated it to another place which took up another car park lot along Jalan Wangsa 2/6.

              I have to highlight another case. When questioning a former councillor, Ng Wei Keong about the illegal dump at a corner, I asked him about his next course of action so that the solid waste contractor did not have to keep clearing all the dumpsite. 

           The rubbish had been piling up for weeks. His only response was that he would install a CCTV.

              Shocked by his response, I asked if a photograph I had captured myself could be used as evidence to locate the dumpster. There was dead silence. Both Ng and Cheong are from the DAP and appointed by former MP, Tony Pua. 

             Despite complaints raised to Pua, the MP, who prided himself as `Not Longkang MP' did not even bother to respond.

              A few months later, I found a signboard at the dumpsite which read: “Warning! You are being monitored on CCTV." What an irony!

    

         Another example, which I had earlier highlighted to DAP top leaders involves the flash flood affecting a road that is located on a hilly area.                              

        Shoddy work by a contractor did not solve the problem, and only after a few months of complaints did the local council appoint another contractor to re-work the drainage system. 

              During this time, neither Tony Pua nor Elizabeth Wong responded to complaints. It was another local councillor who said they would use MARRIS budget to upgrade the drainage. So much money wasted and months of complaints before MPS finally solved the flash flood on a hilly place. 

Better Way to Utilise Public Funds

              The money for the banners could have been used to remove the humps that create problems to motorists. 

         The same money could have gone to repair the jogger’s path or solve the water clogging issue in the park.

              Till today, these issues are not solved. Instead of solving the traffic congestion created by the one-way street road system in Aman Puri, MPS had spent more money on creating another set of one-way traffic system in Desa Jaya which causes the same traffic to keep circulating in the area. 

             One particular junction, for example, has traffic merging into one road from four directions and all criss-crossing.

Point 1 in the diagram shows the crisscrossing of traffic at a junction where they merge.

              With each new system that they implement, if it is necessary, I am fine with it; but Desa Jaya commercial centre, for example, can boast of hardly 10 cars plying the road each minute. Meanwhile, money is already spent on putting up more road signs for one-way streets.

              For over three years now, I have been campaigning against the local council, thinking that I could show to the state government that the council has failed to deliver its quality of services since those days I was highlighting people’s complaints in the press.

              This, unfortunately, has exposed a can of worms in the current Selangor State Government which, of course, comes timely now that Anwar is prime minister and he is serious about revamping the local government. Perhaps, he should also include the state governments.

What I have mentioned here about MPS is happening around the country.