For the 2012 budget, which was just passed in MPSJ last month, we have made some progress & improvements.

1. Cutting of administration overheads and transferring the amount to road maintenance and road works to the tune of RM3mil
2. Adding RM300,000 allocation towards our Crematorium, to add a second burner

This doesn't include savings from the termination of Alam Flora contract. Once we have finalized the new contract, then the savings would be allocated towards other services.

MPSJ allocates RM7mil for road maintenance

By THO XIN YI
thoxinyi@thestar.com.my

Writer: Brenda Ch'ng

SUBANG JAYA: Cleaning abandoned or empty homes is eating into council coffers, and the Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ) is trying to find a way to make irresponsible owners pay.

MPSJ has spent RM47,990 to clean the compounds of over 4,000 homes since 2007.

Cleaning includes the cutting of overgrown grass and clearing of drains to prevent disease-carrying insects or rodents from breeding.

The issue was disclosed at the council’s full board meeting on Wednesday.

effective plan to make people pay up, like maybe getting a court order, to tell residents they can’t get away with not paying,” said MPSJ councillor R Rajiv.

He said these irresponsible homeowners are taking the council for granted by expecting them to clean their yards every time a neighbour complains.

Some houses are even missing doors and roofs, making it uncomfortable for neighbouring residents.

“Most residents fear that these abandoned homes with overgrown grass may serve as a hiding place for robbers,” said Rajiv.

He said although it is expensive to sue all the homeowners, a solution is needed to compel payment.

MPSJ president Datuk Asmawi Kasbi (pic), however, is un- sure if getting the court involved is the right way forward.

“To sue them will cost us more then they owe as the legal fees are high. It just doesn’t make sense,” he said.

The council charges each house a fee of up to RM100 or more for cleaning, depending on the size of compound and amount of work needed.

These cleaning works are done by either council-appointed contractors or MPSJ’s own staff.

According to council protocol, homeowners will be issued a two- week notice to clean up their premises before the council steps in.

However, some homeowners are not contactable, while others rent out their property and are waiting for new tenants to clean up the house.

The council is still brainstorming on the best way to resolve this issue.

While MPSJ does go in to clean up abandoned homes for the sake of the neighbourhood, the issue of claiming the cost remains. I personally feel that MPSJ must chase after this payments, for if not, we would be seen to encourage this bad behavior.

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Council incurring losses over abandoned homes

Writer: Brenda Ch'ng

SUBANG JAYA: Cleaning abandoned or empty homes is eating into council coffers, and the Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ) is trying to find a way to make irresponsible owners pay.

MPSJ has spent RM47,990 to clean the compounds of over 4,000 homes since 2007.

Cleaning includes the cutting of overgrown grass and clearing of drains to prevent disease-carrying insects or rodents from breeding.

The issue was disclosed at the council’s full board meeting on Wednesday.

effective plan to make people pay up, like maybe getting a court order, to tell residents they can’t get away with not paying,” said MPSJ councillor R Rajiv.

He said these irresponsible homeowners are taking the council for granted by expecting them to clean their yards every time a neighbour complains.

Some houses are even missing doors and roofs, making it uncomfortable for neighbouring residents.

“Most residents fear that these abandoned homes with overgrown grass may serve as a hiding place for robbers,” said Rajiv.

He said although it is expensive to sue all the homeowners, a solution is needed to compel payment.

MPSJ president Datuk Asmawi Kasbi (pic), however, is un- sure if getting the court involved is the right way forward.

“To sue them will cost us more then they owe as the legal fees are high. It just doesn’t make sense,” he said.

The council charges each house a fee of up to RM100 or more for cleaning, depending on the size of compound and amount of work needed.

These cleaning works are done by either council-appointed contractors or MPSJ’s own staff.

According to council protocol, homeowners will be issued a two- week notice to clean up their premises before the council steps in.

However, some homeowners are not contactable, while others rent out their property and are waiting for new tenants to clean up the house.

The council is still brainstorming on the best way to resolve this issue.

For the next 3 days, MPSJ's YDP, head of departments and 4 councillors (I'm one of the 4) will be in a brainstorming and discussion session to create the 2011 budget.

Entering the discussions, these are 7 items that I would be pushing for.

1. Road resurfacing Currently, MPSJ allocates approx RM4mil for road works. This goes mostly towards pothole repairs as well as road works for traffic alignment modification. Very little is left over to do scheduled road resurfacing. That's why we see even on main roads such as Pers Tujuan and Taipan, we don't have smooth roads.
I propose increasing this by at least RM5mil. The full RM5mil should go towards road resurfacing.

2. Crematorium MPSJ doesn't have a crematorium for the public. The local government act specifies that this is the duty of the local council. It is propose that MPSJ builds this in Puchong. Estimated cost is RM1.5mil to RM2mil.

3. IT systems for efficiency Only IT systems to improve efficiency. Such as
A) providing for all applications to be online
B) IT system for licensing department for automatic monitoring of license validity. Estimated more than 30% businesses have lapsed license. This is revenue loss for the council, and the public at large.

4. Parks - maintenance and upgrade I believe this is self explanatory.

5. SS15 Multi-storey Car Park, Indoor Sports & Banquent Hall This is the plan for the site next to the market in SS15 and Asia Cafe. Proposed 4-5 floors of car park, with badminton courts and halls above it.

6. Traffic Engineer MPSJ has no engineer overseeing the road network to optimize the road networks and traffic light timing for traffic. All adjustments that are done today are led by ADUN and councillor initiatives. Having someone to continuously overseeing the overall network and make changes pro-actively. This would be beneficial for us all.

7. Increasing Enforcement Officers In some areas of enforcement, we really lack manpower. In monitoring restaurant hygiene, the ratio of enforcement to food outlets is 1:1200, whereas in Singapore its 1:400.
Another area is catching litter bugs and those who dump rubbish illegally. We have no one officer focusing on this.

If this goes thru, at last MPSJ summons would have some bite, and this will help with enforcement and bringing order especially to commercial centers.

This article is from The Star Online (http://thestar.com.my)
URL: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/5/19/central/6286711&sec=central

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REPEAT traffic and parking offenders beware — if an amendment of the Road Transport Act at the next Parliament session goes through, it will see the linking of local council summonses to road tax renewal.

Now, offenders need only settle summonses that are issued by the traffic police or Road Transport Department (JPJ) for offences like using a handphone while driving, speeding, not stopping at traffic lights or driving with an expired road tax, before they renew their road tax.

A local council issues summonses to offenders who do not pay for their parking, double park, or park at non-designated parking spots.
Gotcha!: Traffic offenders may have to settle their local council summonses before they can renew their road tax if an amendment to the Road Transport Act is passed at the Parliament session in June.
Traffic offenders will be slapped with a RM80 fine in areas under the Subang Jaya Municipal Council's (MPSJ) jurisdiction.

A grace period is given whereby they can appeal for their fines to be lowered if it is paid early.

However, many offenders choose to ignore the local council summonses as it does not affect their road tax renewal.

According to the MPSJ, the council issues an average of 17,000 traffic summonses a month, of which only 17% is settled.

The only way that the council can enforce its traffic and parking rules is to haul offenders to court, but there are limitations in terms of time and resources.

A source said a proposal was brought up during a recent briefing with the JPJ.

"If an amendment to Section 17(1)(d) of the Road Transport Act 1978 (Act 333) is passed at the next Parliament session in June, local councils would be able to link up with the JPJ.

"When that happens, offenders will have to settle their local council summonses before renewing their road tax.

"This link is necessary in urban councils where parking issues are especially rampant," he said.

Among the urban councils the source cited are the Petaling Jaya City Council, Klang Municipal Council, Kajang Municipal Council, Selayang Municipal Council and MPSJ.

There are about 150 local councils in Malaysia.
__________________________________________________________________________
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Have you paid up?

MPSJ gets tough with assessment tax defaulters

By: by Meena L. Ramadas (May 17, 2010)

MPSJ personnel seize a sofa from a furniture shop in Taman Puchong Prima.

THE Subang Jaya Muncipal Council (MPSJ) is cracking the whip on assessment tax defaulters, and residential areas will not be spared.

MPSJ Revenue director Sharifah Rohaida Abd Rahman said assessment tax is overdue on 30% of residential properties in the muni-cipality, which equates to about RM7 million.

"The total assessment tax from residential properties is approximately RM23 million a year," she said after an MPSJ operation to collect the overdue payments.

"We have been focusing so much on acq-uiring overdue fees from commercial prop-erties which have higher assessment tax, to the extent that residential property defaulters have been overlooked."

Sharifah said some home owners have not paid assessment tax for over 10 years.

She said the assessment rate for residential properties is 5% of the value of the property, vacant land: 2% of the value, and commercial properties 6% of the market value or rental income.

Tax is payable twice a year in January and July, and owners are given two months to settle the payments.

Sharifah said the council had issued 250,148 assessment bills amounting to RM74.7 million up to April 30, and collected 90% of taxes.

The MPSJ operation last week was con-ducted on 20 premises, nine of which were commercial properties with a total arrears of RM103,364.

The council seized four items from a fur-niture shop in Taman Puchong Prima whose owner had failed to pay assessment tax for four years, amounting to RM2,538.

Three sofa sets, each worth RM800, and a lounge sofa worth RM200 were seized as a guarantee for payment.

Sharifah said that if the owner did not pay the overdue sum in a week, the council would auction the items.

She said the operation started last month and will end on June 30.

Defaulters will be issued with notices. Sharifah said they would be given 15 days from the date on the notice to pay the outstanding sum, failing which the council will conduct property seizure.

"But we give them an additional seven days on top of the 15 days to pay up out of compas-sion."

Municipal councillor Cheah Sang Soon said the council was serious about collecting overdue assessment tax from residential home owners as people can afford to pay for it.

"People have a lackadaisical attitude as they think the council will not take action if they do not pay up," he said.

Cheah said that under Section 148, Act 171 of the Local Government Act 1976, the local auth-ority has the power to seize assets from a resi-dent or any party found to owe the authority assessment tax.

--- end ---    --- Article Information --- This article was emailed from Sun2Surf. Article's URL: http://www.thesundaily.com/article.cfm?id=46835 

There has been a lot of news in the papers regarding billboards in MBPJ over the last one year. It is because they were the first to tackle this issue head on. Pretty soon we'll probably see MPSJ in the news, with the billboard operators mostly angry at MPSJ... But lets look at what has happened.

The history...

Pre 2009, there has been 3 categories of billboards in MPSJ areas.

1. Signage
- this is billboards under thier contract with MPSJ, special case. There have exclusivity in certain zones in exchange for constructing bus stops and pedestrian bridges throughout MPSJ.

2. Legal billboards
- This are other billboard operators who have constucted billboards legally. For a billboard to be legal, it needs
a) Planning Approval (Kebenaran Merancang) - given by MPSJ
b) Structural Permit - given by MPSJ
c) Visual License - given by MPSJ
d) If on govt land, need TOL (temporary occupancy license) - Land Office
Not many billboards comply with this, tho some actually have License without a) and b). Technically, MPSJ shouldn't have allowed for that, but somehow, pre-2008, all these were allowed.

3. Illegal billboards
- Some of these have no approval at all, and others just have visual license approved and paid.

This has not only caused a loss of income to MPSJ, but also a certain amount of chaos in moving forward.


The dilemma today...

For the purpose of this article, we will refer to the common billboard size, 10' x 40'. The normal rates (since MPSJ started in 1998 till now) is
a) Planning Approval (Kebenaran Merancang) - RM200
b) Structural Permit - RM250
c) Visual License - RM500/visual
d) Billboard license - RM5000
e) If on govt land, need TOL (temporary occupancy license) - previously RM2000, now RM3000
(there is also RM1000 deposit to MPSJ, RM5000 deposit on TOL)

Total due for 2009 is RM8950. However, which we might soon see in the papers, some of this billboard companies will be crying bloody murder, as they claim RM8950 is too expensive, killing their business. They will also claim that previously they only paid RM500 + RM1000 deposit for their billboards. They will claim that the sudden rates are an attempt to kill their rice bowl. They claim that the billboard occupancy rate is around 50% (really? I don't notice that many empty billboards around Subang Jaya, though I admit I've not gone around calculating), and per billboard they only earn an average of RM18k/yr.

Today we had a dialogue with such companies. We want to be fair, we gave them a chance to hear them out. It got pretty ugly at some points.


The future...

From 2010 onwards, based on the state guidelines, all billboards will pay 25% of their revenue to MPSJ under a profit sharing basis, instead of the respective fees.


The decision..
Considering that some billboard companies have been paying the full/proper rates before this, and are willing to do so for 2009, do we stick to this? Are we business un-friendly to do so? We don't want to destroy industries, really, that would also cost job losses and also less revenue to the goverment.

One of the things discovered in local governments in Selangor is that all telco operators (Maxis, Celcom, P1, etc) have to go thru Kumpulan Jaringan Selangor (KJS) to apply to set up telecommunication structures. KJS would then be the sole body permitted to apply to local councils (such as MPSJ) for the permit to put such towers/structures.

This has been another way the previous administration has used as a "rent seeking" measure, to milk money from these telcos for their personal pocket. It is unknown who is truly behind KJS.

This matter has been highlighted to the State Govt, and hopefully this monopoly would come to an end.

Since the telcos have been complying the last few years with KJS rates, I also propose that local council charges the same rates KJS has been charging the telcos, to increase the council's revenue. This additional revenue can be channel towards public benefits - such as increasing park lighting, resurfacing roads, etc.

1. Council homes
2. Rent subsidy

1. Community Halls
2. Sports facilities
3. Library