TheStar's review on Local council's in Selangor

Drastic move pays off in the long run


IT has been two years and three months since Pakatan Rakyat took charge of Selangor in March 2008 and the question often asked is whether they are doing a better job than their predecessor?
For the ordinary people, what matters most is whether they are getting better service from the local governments for garbage collection, cleaning of drains and proper maintenance of public facilities such as community halls, playgrounds and fields.
But more than that, many are keen to see a transformation at the local councils which had been ridden with allegations of corruption that had led to wastage of public funds through wrong planning and decisions.
Talking about effective services, five local authorities in Selangor have received the four-star rating from the Housing and Local Government Ministry.
Petaling Jaya City Council, Subang Jaya Municipal Council, Shah Alam Municipal Council, Klang Municipal Council and recently Kajang had join ed the list of the four-star councils.
They are only among a total of 11 in the country to have achieved the standard. They have been adjudged for their overall performance, including in terms of services offered.
Over the last two years, it is apparent that the financial standing of the local councils had become much stronger.
This can be attributed to good governance and transparency by the various local councils.
To cite an example, the Klang Municipal Council was embroiled in a massive financial turmoil, running huge debts amounting to RM40mil.
The council even faced difficulty paying the monthly wages of their staff. The good news is that things have changed for the better and the council has almost recovered and heading towards turning their red account into black.
Kudos also to the Petaling Jaya City Council which had increased its reserves from RM80mil to RM191mil in just two years. This is achieved through careful spending of public funds.
As a result of this development, assessment rates for high-rise properties in Petaling Jaya had been brought down to the level of landed properties.
The other obvious way of cutting down cost that had been imposed on the local authorities is to prevent beautifying streets with plastic plants and flowers.
Besides doing away with the unfriendly plastic stuff, it must be pointed out that the regular facelift and beautification of roundabouts at the various councils had been banned.
There was one council in the state which used to spend millions annually on beautification of a particular roundabout.
In a move to weed out graft, the state had also introduced several measures, including cutting down political interferences at the local councils.
While in the past, all the state assemblymen will be sitting on the tender boards that decide on the awarding of the contracts, the Pakatan Government had even gone one step further by removing them from sitting in as local councillors by virtue of them being elected representatives.
The assemblyman’s role in the councils has been restricted to an observer who does not have any say in the decision-making process.
At the tender baords, councillors including those from the political and non-governmental organisation (NGO) quotas are made to sit-in with the council officers to ensure that the contracts are not awarded to cronies.
While tenders are called for most of the contracts, the names of the successful contractors are also displayed at public places, including council offices.
This move has helped to cut monopoly of contracts by certain groups.
Most of the councillors used to be contractors in the past and often used their influence to snatch contracts from the respective councils that they sit in. This situation has changed drastically.
The introduction of the residential committee headed by a councillor who is in charge of a particular zone had also proved effective as the present councillors could be seen working on the ground.
In the past, the councillors were faceless and they are hardly seen working on the ground compared with now where they were supported with the service of a full-time assistant.
The committees have become a bridge between the councils and the people as they have been effective in resolving local issues.
Some of the councils are also allocating a substantial sum of money to the committees so that they can carry out projects that will benefit the people.
The councillors are responsible for handling issues in their respective areas and most of these individuals have been doing a great job.
The state had introduced 24-hour approval for 56 type of businesses that are considered low risk so that entrepreneurs would not kept waiting for months to obtain approvals for their applications.
In the past, endorsement from state assemblyman or councillors are required for application of these licences.
A one-stop centre has been created to look into approval for building renovations and the committee meets once a week and therefore the approval process is much faster now.
The other notable programme that has been launched is the clean-zone campaign aimed at identifying the dirtiest area in a particular council and making these become the cleanest place over a period of a year.
The clean zone has also proved to be a success with many of the commonly known dirty areas seeing remarkable improvement.
To sum up, the state’s drastic action to remove the automatic quota for state assemblymen to sit in as local councillors and bringing in 25% of candidates from the NGOs had done the trick.
Among others, the move to set up the Audit and Good Governance Committee at all the councils will gradually help to transform the image of the councils which had been tarnished by allegations of graft.
This committee has been empowered to investigate the wrongdoings of the council.

JKP3 Family Day coverage on Komunitikini

USJ family day is fowl-filled excitement

BY LEVEN WOON ON 22 JUN, 2010 
TAGGED:  •  •  • 
IN COMMUNITY INSPIRESEVENTSNEWSSUBANG JAYA.
Laughter, cheering and children’s quick steps were among the sounds clearly heard in USJ 5 field when JKP Zone 3 organised its first ever “chicken catching” contest during USJ Family Day held last Saturday’s evening.
While many might think city dwellers have a phobia to real chicken, Subang juniors immediately dismissed the claim at the moment 50 chickens were released on field.
The children aged 12 and below went all-out to chase and catch the chickens running around.
The activity was the highlight of the Family Day. Designated for kids aged 12 and below, the 15-minute event saw all 50 chickens getting caught and brought home by the young accomplishers.
JKP Zone 3 chairman Rajiv Rishyakaran said the residents committee and him have been planning the event since December last year.
“We are proud to succeed the biggest and first ever family day at night. We also would like to thank our volunteers to their selfless dedication in organising the event.”
He said some 100 community volunteers showed up as early as 6am that day to help setup booths, arrange things and organised the venue.
(Second from the left) Hannah and Rajiv (forth from left) were doing lucky draws.
The Family Day also featured activities such as football matches between Brazil Club vs Subang Jaya Committee Youth Football League, clown art, sand craft art, health screening by Forest Medical Centre, ‘Meet the Firemen’ showcase and performances from “Wonder Ladies”, Kim Sng and SonShine Playhouse.
‘Wonder Ladies’ performing Korean hit- Nobody But You.
Big turnout drew a high pitch where some 1000 residents flew in from all over Subang Jaya, some even came from Puchong for the event held from 5pm to 11pm.
Komunitikini also setup a booth to offer Malaysiakini special subscription rates and Zunar’s latest political comics.
Subang assemblyperson Hannah Yeoh said the performances on stage were all from the local groups who have passion for art.
“Sometimes there aren’t many platforms for the local groups, but this is exactly the right venue for them to showcase their talents.
She noted that it was beatboxer Kim Sng’s second times to performing at a family day.
Considering the overwhelming response this time, Rajiv said he will consider making it a yearly affair.
Children enjoyed the games

MPSJ to empower its traffic wardens to help police during peak hours

MPSJ to empower its traffic wardens to help police during peak hours

By JADE CHAN
jade@thestar.com.my


TRAFFIC congestion in Subang Jaya is a bane to the people there. With this in mind, the Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ) hopes to empower its traffic wardens to complement the police in exercising their duties.
MPSJ councillor Rajiv Rishyakaran, said the council felt that deploying traffic wardens would be helpful in assisting the police to direct traffic flow during peak hours.
Daily scene: One reason why congestion occurs in Subang is that cars on the left of Persiaran Tujuan try to squeeze into the right lanes to get onto the Federal Highway.
“While the traffic police has the ultimate control in enforcing the rules where traffic is concerned, the council can apply to the Federal Government to enpower their wardens with similar powers.
“This can be done under the existing Act — Section 3(a)(1) of the Road Transport Act 1978 (Act 333) on the Authorisation to Mayor and Officers of City Council.”
The Act states: “(3) Upon authorisation being made under subsection (1), the Mayor and officers or persons in the service of the City Council may exercise the powers conferred and perform the duties imposed by this Act on the Dato Bandar or traffic warden, as the case may be, ...”.
“It simply means that if the application goes through, the MPSJ can use its powers to regulate traffic,” said Rajiv.
“When this happens, the MPSJ’s existing enforcement officers can be trained to perform the duties of a traffic warden.”
He said the MPSJ’s main motivation for having traffic wardens was to assist traffic police officers with directing peak hour traffic in the morning and evening, as and when they are needed.
Among the roads in Subang Jaya that are particularly heavy during peak hour traffic are Persiaran Tujuan, Persiaran Kewajipan and the New Pantai Expressway (NPE) stretch in front of Bandar Sunway.

Tree trivia

Interesting...


Tree trivia


● One tree annually produces 91kg of oxygen.
● In a year, 40 trees remove 37kg of air pollutants, reducing smog and air pollution.
●Four million trees would save RM68mil in air pollution clean-up.
● Trees help offset greenhouse gases.
● Trees provide home, shelter and nourishment for animals.
● Trees can make a home 10°C cooler, saving an average of RM595 a year in air conditioning cost.
● A young, healthy tree is equivalent to 10 room-sized air conditioners operating for 20 hours.
● Trees can increase property value by 20%.
● Trees are on the job 24 hours a day to improve our environment and lives.

Family day Photos

Play snake and ladders like never before...

Photos From Family Day

Probably the most unusual event, and the most fun - the children getting ready to catch live chickens

The first batch of photos from JKP3 Family Day 2010

Fwd: Local councils raise stink over 10MP waste scheme

The idea that Federal Government runs rubbish collection, and local councils have to foot the bill is absolutely ridiculous. Its certainly not in the best interest of the public, but in the interest of a few big companies. Who is going to pay attention to the complaints from the man on the street when the appointment of the company is done far far away in Putrajaya...


Local councils raise stink over 10MP waste scheme
Aidila Razak
MALAYSIAKINI
Jun 11, 10
1:08pm

The federalisation and eventual privatisation of solid waste management featured in the 10th Malaysia Plan will only be detrimental to the people, Selangor local councillors say.

If anything, they said, this move will only serve to increase centralisation and reduce local authority jurisdiction.

um pro-m talk 05022010 03 lee khai loonAccording to the plan unveiled yesterday, the move is to "relieve (the local authority) of this workload", which typically takes up 40 to 50 percent of their manpower.

"I don't see how this is going to happen. I can only see it causing more bureaucracy and a hike in commissions or management fees," Selayang municipality councillor Lee Khai Loon (right) said.

"The funds for this will come from our revenue, and all the complaints will still come to us, but we won't have power to do anything about it."

Local councils in Selangor are now paying a management fee to Alam Flora Sdn Bhd, on top of other fees paid to contractors managed by the company, amounting to about 40 percent of their revenue.

Likewise, Petaling Jaya councillor Derek Fernandez slammed the proposal, saying that it was more the case of "piratisation, rather than privatisation".

azlan"The privatisation of basic services like water and waste management is disgusting... they privatise all the profit-making areas and we get to handle all the complaints," he burst out.

Fernandez added the federal move was questionable as it was not constitutional to take away the power of local authorities in the name of "streamlining".

'New datuk or tan sri-owned consortium'

The Malaysian experience with privatisation shows that it would likely produce "cartels or monopolies", rather than provide cheaper and better service to the people, he said.

government appeal on allah case 060110 herald lawyer derek   fernandez"I am certain that at the end of the day it is the same subcontractor that collects your garbage with differently-painted trucks with some datuk or tan sri heading the new consortium," he said.

He added that in Petaling Jaya alone, the contract is worth RM52 million a year, making it a very lucrative industry to be in.

Fernandez (left) also brushed off the argument that the move will 'ease the burden' of local councils who cannot afford it.

"If this is the case then they shouldn't impose it on councils that are managing fine," he said, adding that the Petaling Jaya City Council will oppose the move as neither the council nor the state was consulted.

However, Lee said that the state must prepare itself as the Federal government appears all set to implement it.

"We should form a negotiation team so we can have a say in any deals that the government will have with any consortium, as it will have long term impact.

"Right now we're forced to pay a lot of money for sub-par service because of an agreement signed by the previous Selangor government," he said.

Fwd: A typical day of VPU patrolling.

By Volunteer Tan Heng Boon 

Dear All,
Attached is a typical day for VPU members on their patrolling. Mr. Mak and I started our duty at 2pm and finished at 5pm using his Toyota Unser today. 
Petrol provided by Adun YB Hannah Yeoh and 02 policemen by Insp. Chia of Usj8 police station.
Attached are photos taken during our partrolling giving you a idea what we, VPU have been doing since Jan 2010 when we first started.
Mak and I decided to start of at Usj4 then continue on to Usj3 and finished up at Usj2.

Photos show ....02 policemen on motorcycle following our car.  

USJ 4  -Police checking out 02 Indian nationals found at one lane. 
           -checking on a house with gates wide open but no one at home, typical!.
           -House alarm went off with no one at home, did check on house.

USJ 3  -A house with full grown plants!. Took pic for Mpsj and tried to encourage neighbours 
            to report.
           -Police checking on a Indonesian national with 2 more persons inside house behaving
            suspiciously!
           -Mak talking to Sel. Football No.1 fan, En.Zorro trying to get him to join VPU. 
           -Police signing-in a 'police blue box' infront of house. 

USJ2  -My territory checking on GnG guards and introduce them to the police.
          -Another house with beau. overgrown lalang....spoke to a resident next door and she
           ask if I could report to Mpsj. Told her it would be more effective if she reports 
           because she is more likely to get dengue b4 me!

That's all and hope you will tell your friends to join us and spread the word "VPU". Thanks also to Adun YB Hannah, Insp. Chia and Mpsj for their assistance in making VPU a part of Subang Jaya community.
Take Care and thank you for your time.












JKP3 USJ Family Day


Goodies bags will be distributed to the first 500 registered families. Goodie bags are filled with lots of goodies worth over RM100
Lucky draw (lucky draw will be conducted throughout the program, from 730pm till 10pm Everyone who registers stands a change to win. Prizes on offer inlcude
Nokia Handphone worth RM500
Ogawa Slimming Belt worth RM799
Shopping vouchers from Jusco & Parkson
4 Famous Amos Hampers worth RM1000 in total
3 EUTAG Sunglasses, worth RM1000 in total
Malaysiakini subscription 
Goodyear tyres (set of 4)
Pilates Classes
T-shirts
& more..

Activities
Tour of Fire Truck
Football Skills Demonstration by Brazil Football Club
Football Clinic (free by Brazil Football Club)
Pilates Demo Class
Food Bazaar & Merchandise booths
FREE Health Screeing
2 Football Exhibitions Matches
Fun Fair, with prizes
Voters Registration
Live Concert, including an appearance by MPSJ's band

Specially for kids
Clown Show
Sand Art
Face Painting
Bouncy Castle
Live size Snake & Ladders
Telematches
Menangkap Ayam Kampung (yes, we are releasing 50 live chickens 
in a live chicken catching competition)

Also, subscribe to TheStar at our family day to enjoy a great discount plus 
free Touch'nGo card worth RM20
6months subscription RM170 (save RM60)
12 months subscription RM320 (save RM140)

This event will also mark the launch of 
Selangor No Plastic Bag Saturday Campaign at the USJ Level

JKP3 Money Basics Seminar #2: The Importance of Will Writing & Estate Planning

MPSJ to receive RM2.2mil allocation for Safe City Initiatives

MPSJ will be setting up a committee to look into the strategies of spending the RM2.2mil allocated from the NKRA initiatives. I'm sure there are some rules on what & how we can spend it, but we'll work within that framework to get the best deal possible...


Council to receive RM2.2mil allocation

Mayor Speaks
By ADNAN MOHD IKHSAN
Subang Jaya


The federal government has allocated RM2.2mil to the Subang Jaya Municipal Council to implement a Safe City Programme.
We are one of the 12 local councils chosen to receive the allocation in the country through the crime National Key Result Areas (NKRA).
With the funds, we will be able to take preventive measures at crime hotspots identified by the police.
Among the measures include installing more streetlights, safety mirrors and alarms at crime-prone zones and separating pedestrian paths from motor lanes with barriers or plants.
Last Friday, we conducted a site visit with OCPD Subang Jaya Asst Comm Zainal Rashid Abu Bakar to conduct crime-mapping.
Checking up: The MPSJ’s CCTV control room.
A total of 12 crime hotspots in Subang Jaya and Puchong were pinpointed.
With the crime statistics presented, we will then decide on what has to be done in the specific areas.
We will be forming a Safe City Programme sub-committee — comprising councillors, police, Immigration Department, TNB, and Malaysian Crime Prevention Foundation — to monitor and coordinate the implementation of the programme.
We hope the close cooperation between the MPSJ and the police will help curb crime in areas under the MPSJ’s jurisdiction.
The programme will be ongoing until the zero crime rate is achieved.
Another RM1.15mil was also allocated by the Housing and Local Government Ministry to upgrade 77 bus stops.
We have identified the bus stops and are appointing contractors for the project.

News Clipping: Double-parkers beware, MPSJ promises swift action

Double-parkers beware, MPSJ promises swift action

BY LEVEN WOON ON 1 JUN, 2010 
TAGGED:  •  •  •  • 
IN NEWSSUBANG JAYA.
Vehicles doubleparked in SS15, SS16, and USJ 21 will now have summons locks affixed to their side mirrors.
Speaking to the media after MPSJ’s full board meeting, MPSJ president Adnan Md Ikhsan announced that the measure will be imposed starting today to curb the double parking woes in the areas
“We have bought 1700 locks and (they) could be reused up to 27000 times. (Today) we are going to kickoff in SS15.”
Culprits will have to settle the RM80 summons before paying RM40 to undo the lock at the MPSJ headquarters.
The measure went through preliminary trials in USJ Taipan from January to March. It was claimed the measure resulted in improved traffic conditions in the area.
The local council meanwhile was selected as one of the twelve local councils to receive a RM2.3 million grant under the federal government’s Safe City program.
MPSJ has mapped out five criminal ‘hotspots’ each in Subang Jaya and Puchong. A working committee comprising local councillors, OCPDs and NGOs will facilitate the program.
“Our three main priorities will be to improve the lighting of these hotspots, to install security alarms and to alienate walkways from motorcycle lane.
He said among some identified hotspots include USJ8, Puchong Jaya, Bandar Bukit Puchong, Putra Permai, and Seri Kembangan.
“We have done our studies; we will start as soon as we got the funds,” Adnan said.
The council has also amended the local government act so that it may charge any premise owners of illegal businesses in court.
Adnan said many premise owners are being apathetic even though their premises are rented out to illegal businesses.
“They don’t care whether the tenants are conducting illegal cyber cafes, gambling or whatsoever. They only want their rentals paid on time.
“With the amended act, MPSJ now is entitled to charge those premise owners in court. So they have to make sure they rent (out premises) to the right person.”
MPSJ will also spend RM1.15million to upgrade bus stops in 77 locations. They are now in the process of appointing contractors and reviewing their site plan.
The fund was granted by the federal government under the National Key Result Areas (NKRA) public transport chapter.
The local council also called on the public to avoid any self-claimed MPSJ agent, but instead visit the MPSJ itself.
“We even saw a cyber cafe license being listed for bidding on the Internet, but we would like to remind the public that (the) license is not transferable.”
Copyright © 2010 Rajiv for Malaysia All rights reserved.