PETPOSITIVE BREAKING NEWS!PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES TO BE TOWN COUNCILLORS SOON.
StarMetro reports today that five handicapped individuals are scheduled to be picked as town councillors for Selangor Darul Ehsan state.
The move to offer the posts to disabled Malaysians is a tremendous history-making effort for the Government of Selangor as disabled rights advocates - who are disabled themselves - have always be championing for their rights to be represented in decision-making bodies.
"Nothing about us without us!" is the internationally popular clarion call by disabled communities the world over.
It was reported in The Star on June 3 that a representative from Malaysians Against the Discrimination of the Disabled (MADD) and the Independent Living and Training Centre (ILTC) were tipped by the newspaper as a couple of the names that are on the list to become town councillors.
However we in PETPOSITIVE or the ILTC have not heard anything about being selected to date.
The next few days will be interesting to watch. It has been reported that the list is scheduled to be known by Friday.
Fingers crossed, one and all!
aNt
PET+BLOGSPOT
Here now is today's story in The Star:
Tuesday June 17, 2008
Final background checks being done on councillors
By JADE CHAN
THE new local council line-up in Selangor will see PKR having the majority in terms of party representation.
Sources said PKR members would make up the majority of councillors in 10 out of the 12 local councils.
The party representation in the Selangor councillors line-up would be as follows: PKR 28.5% (82 councillors), DAP 26.4% (76 councillors) and PAS 17.0% (49 councillors), while the remaining 28.1% (81 councillors) would comprise representatives from non-governmental organisations (NGOs), residents’ associations and professional groups.
The breakdown list, made available to StarMetro, showed the Petaling Jaya City Council, Subang Jaya Municpal Council and Ampang Jaya Municipal Council having the largest representation of non-political councillors.
Out of the 288 councillors, five would comprise those from the disabled group (orang kurang upaya or OKU).
The party representatives encompass senior division committee members who have strong leadership qualities as well as adequate experience and qualifications while those from NGO and professional groups comprise those who specialise in fields like urban planning, law, health and environment.
“None of the wakil rakyat’s assistants are on the councillors list. Nominated party members also cannot be involved in the construction business to avoid conflicts of interest,” a source said.
“On PKR’s side, we try to emphasise that each council has at least one Chinese and one Indian representative to reflect a multi-racial line-up.”
The source added that all the councillors’ performances would be reviewed after a year and those who had not performed would be replaced.
One of the reasons for the delay in announcing the new councillors line-up, the source said, was the early resignation of the previous batch of councillors.
“It was irresponsible of the Barisan Nasional side to have their councillors resign. The previous councillors should have completed their contracts and left once the new councillors were sworn in.”
Sources said final background checks are being conducted on the candidates and that the new line-up would be announced at the end of this week , during a celebration to mark the 100 days of the Pakatan Rakyat coming into power in Selangor.
It was also revealed that the mayors and presidents heading the present local councils would be retained, unless they resign, are unable to perform their jobs or if their contracts expired.
No comments:
Post a Comment