An email from Arvin, one of my JKP3 members...
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Dear Datuk Idris Jala, Datuk Hishamuddin & Mr Eugene Teh,
Allow me to relate an incident that happened to me this morning. I live in USJ Subang Jaya & this morning at 11am, I went to the nearby town centre, Taipan, to buy some items from the hardward store. As a law abiding citizen, I parked my car a distance away across the main road at another block of shoplots and walked over to the shop. On my way back at about 11.30am (please refer to attached police report), as I was waiting to cross the main road to get to my car, whilst holding a few items in my hands, a lone motorcyclist suddenly appeared out of nowhere and snatched my goldchain from my neck from behind. Before I or anyone of the numerous people & motorists in their cars could do anything, the criminal zoomed off amongst the jam of cars. It happened in the blink of an eye and I now understand why a lot of snatch theft victims say that they were unable to react in time. Bear in mind that I am a 6 foot 82 kg, 41 year old male. Even the police were surprised that the criminal was so daring to rob a person like me as they rarely target males according to them and more so a fairly larger sized specimen such as myself.
Why am I taking the trouble to write in to you you may ask? Well, because I believe that we as Malaysians deserve much more than a lot of rhetoric and nice sounding sound bites regarding all the various acronyms that Pemandu has launched. I refer to Eugene's press conference recently where it was declared that Pemandu's crime NKRA's are working (refer to attached article). According to the said article, it was stated that an additional 30,000 police officers have been reassigned to hotspots. Trust me, we don't see them. The sergeant who took down my report was lamenting to my about his lack of resources as he had insufficient men to patrol, investigate etc. Thus, the rhetoric and the reality aren't in sync are they? USJ & Subang Jaya are definitely huge residential areas and crime hotspots. Why is it that even with a police station opened up in a shophouse in Taipan itself that criminals are still so brazenly daring in carrying out such thefts in broad daylight? What about the CCTV's that are supposedly at all main corners/junctions? I can safely say that our criminal minded members of society are able to get away with virtually anything as we as a country can't even seem to control a simple thing like illegal stickers defacing public property all over the place, even signboards and roadsigns. Nowhere else have we seen such blatant disregard for the law except for our beloved nation. I know this issue well & am trying to do something about it.
Let me state that I am a proactive Malaysian who many years ago founded the USJ9 neighbourhood watch and subsequently for the last few years, pre & post 2008, I have sat as a committee member of the MPSJ Jawatankusas Penduduk (JKP) Zon 3. We as committee members commit our precious time on a purely voluntary basis towards trying to improve the liveability of our community and every year, conduct many activities/programmes to make people's lives a bit better. Trust me when I say that I have seen things deteriorate over the years especially with regard to crime and as I stated above, blatant disregard for the laws by everybody. My story of being a snatch theft victim is not an isolated one as our Councillor for JKP Zon 3, Rajiv's brother was violently attacked from behind last week in Subang Jaya SS14, beaten up and robbed. We are men. How are we to protect our wives and families if we can't rely on the police and government to play their role in minimizing the danger to us as citizens when we go about our daily business? Almost everyone I know has been a victim of snatch theft, car windows smashed at traffic lights and robbed etc etc. These are not statistics, these are REAL PEOPLE GETTING ROBBED AND TRAUMATIZED!
Eugene, you were quoted as saying "In 2009, the main problem was snatch theft. But with a lot more police officers patrolling the streets, the number of snatch thefts was reduced. However, it doesn't mean we have resolved the issue". Definitely the issue hasn't been resolved much less reduced if you ask most of us Malaysians. Ask anyone and they will tell you that spotting police patrolling the streets either on foot or in cars is almost like striking the lottery. As stated, I stay in SJ but I work in the heart of downtown KL & frequently walk around Jln Raja Chulan & Bukit Bintang during lunchtime etc. These are busy places with tons of tourists; hardly any cops in sight at all save for those directing traffic during rush hour. Contrast this with major cities around the world; NY, London, HK, Singapore, police presence is visible everywhere and this definitely has an impact on would be criminals. In fact, the sergeant told me just now that even with a shortage of men, what he's trying to do is to get 1 policeman in a patrol car to patrol & his instructions if he comes across anything are to radio for backup as there normally should be 2 of them in 1 vehicle. He agreed that the visibility of the police has been proven to reduce the incidence of crime. So, if you say that there are an extra 30,000 officers deployed to hotspots, how come we aren't seeing them? Or are they all hiding behind some bushes somewhere?
I truly hope that as a law-abiding tax paying (the 10% who supports the balance 90% as you point out frequently, Datuk Idris), that more concrete action will be taken ASAP to bring a greater police presence where it is truly needed. The 'broken glass theory" works which I believe Rudy Giulani implemented when he became NY mayor & subsequently reduced crime drastically. We need to see this happening here. When people don't give a damn about speeding past red lights, breaking traffic rules at whim, defacing public property, dumping illegally, how do you address the bigger crime issues? There has to be a return to civility and abiding by the law. That will only happen if there's a fear of getting caught, which I can say with certainty that at this point of time, is virtually non-existent.
I hope this letter won't be filed away and forgotten as I would expect a response on how the government of the day is going to proactively make us feel that much safer about this country which we call home.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Arvin Chia
Currently, only a handful of residents are paying for bulk waste collection while the majority are dumping it illegally, hoping it will be collected in a few weeks.
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 10 — A local transport advocacy group has questioned the wisdom of committing up to RM50 billion into the Klang Valley Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) project without waiting for a public transport masterplan that will only be completed at the end of this month.
The Association For The Improvement Of Mass Transit (Transit) told The Malaysian Insiderthat this has tied the hands of transport authorities to the project instead of alternatives such as a bus rapid transit (BRT).
File photo of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak (centre) launching the MRT project in July.
Rajiv, who is representing the group while its chairman Muhammad Zulkarnain Hamzah is in Canada pursuing further studies, cited the Light Rail Transit (LRT) as a warning of the pitfalls of going ahead without a blueprint.
“Now more than a decade later they are extending it for RM7 billion,” he said of the two LRT lines which had cost an initial RM5.5 billion but continues to see low traffic at several stations.
The Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) had begun drafting a national public transport masterplan in September last year, three months after it was established to streamline the country’s public transport system.
Although it gave itself 12 months to finalise the national public transport blueprint, the alignment for the first MRT line running 51km from Sungai Buloh to Kajang was opened to public feedback in March with tendering of work beginning in April.
SPAD chief executive Mohd Nur Kamal had said at the official MRT launch in July that “there is no sense waiting” for the masterplan as the mega project was primarily geared towards “jump-starting” the Najib administation’s Economic Transformation Programme.
Rajiv said the masterplan also fell short of a full transport masterplan that would take into account other parties such as the Public Works Department, local councils and the Malaysian Highway Authority.
“Instead, SPAD will plan and cross its fingers that everything else falls into place,” the Subang Jaya local councillor said.
Although Rajiv would not reveal details of Transit’s two discussions with SPAD over the masterplan this year, he said the Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ) had not been approached to discuss bus routes, “so you can deduce which direction they are heading.”
Transit had earlier proposed a BRT as an alternative for alleviating choking road traffic in the Klang Valley, stating that implementing it would cost 50 times less than the MRT.
But the suggestion was shot down in the MRT’s environmental impact assessment report which said that it would require 90-passenger vehicles to run uninterrupted nearly every 10 seconds to match the MRT’s targeted 30,000 passengers per hour per direction (PPHPD).
The MRT project has come under fire from various parties including Malay contractors who demanded that qualifications for projects be eased to ensure Bumiputera participation.
Several communities have also been up in arms over SPAD’s insistence that it must acquire their land to build tracks for the project that it says is in the greater public interest.
