All of us here in Petpositive have still no idea if Our President, Anthony SB Thanasayan, will be picked to serve for a THIRD CONSECUTIVE TERM as Petaling Jaya's (MBPJ) City Councillor from July next month until the same time in 2011.
We are certainly pitching in that he will so that a lot of important work that has already been started for the disabled and elderly community - as well as animals - will go on to bring about improvement for all of them.
The mood was mixed and somewhat anxious at the MBPJ Full Board Meeting on Tuesday. Whilst most were confidant that they would make it in the new list, at least two were unsure of their fate.
Here are all three of them from StarMetro:
STORY #1:
Tuesday June 29, 2010
Councillors list yet to be finalised
YET again the new list of 288 local councillors for 2010/2011 Selangor will only be announced at the last minute when the one-year tenure ends on June 30.
Selangor state local government committee chairman Ronnie Liu the list has yet to be finalised.
This will be the third time that the Pakatan Government has waited till the last minute before making the list public.
He said the list was expected to have some 30% of new faces.
Liu said most of the familiar faces would be retained and only about one third of them would be new.
He said the changes were being made based on the need and not for the sake of making changes.
“We have to make changes to the list in order to provide room for more improvement at the local authorities.
“The expectations are very high and we need to offer new candidates as part of our efforts to further strengthen the local authorities,” he said.
In response to whether the state was not satisfied with the performance of the outgoing councillors, Liu said it was not the case with all.
“There are many reasons why some of the 2009/2010 councillors are not re-appointed,
“Some wanted to step down as a councillor as the duties are very challenging while some are opting for a change in career or are starting new ventures,” he said.
Liu said the state had also maintained the 25% quota for those from the non governmental organiations (NGOs).
He said the inclusion of candidates from the NGOs had also helped in the decision-making process of the council.
“Their contribution is vital as they represent a wide strata of society and these people have been working closely with the people at the grassroots,” he said.
On the whole, Liu said those appointed to the various local authorities had been entrusted with the responsibility of serving the people.
He said their focus was on providing the best for the ratepayers.
“We do not want those appointed to put their self interests first,” he added.
When contacted, Petaling Jaya deputy mayor Puasa Md Taib said the council has not received the new list of councillors from the state government and thus could not issue appointment letters.
That has left many councillors anxious.
Anthony Thanasayan, for one, said the appointment of new councillors that would only be announced at the eleventh hour had slowed down some plans.
“Many projects are on-going but I could not take certain moves because I do not know whether I will still be in the right position to do so,” he said.
“I feel anxious and nervous. I hope we can be informed earlier and I really do not want to find out in the newspapers on whether I am in or not,” he added.
STORY #2:
Tuesday June 29, 2010
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 joined 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 boards, 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.
STORY #3:
Tuesday June 29, 2010
No big change yet in Selangor
There has been a mixed response to the new councillors in Selangor. Some people are unhappy with the lack of positive change in the local authorities while others feel there has been better service and ratepayers money has been used prudently. StarMetro reports on the situation.
IT HAS been two years since the Pakatan Rakyat councillors took over the local councils in Selangor.
With the change of government in 2008, the people of Selangor eagerly awaited the new councillors, some who were very vocal as members of the opposition or as NGOs,
After two years, many have yet to see the big change they were hoping for while several incidents caused uneasiness among the people.
In the Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ), the councillors were put in the limelight when 10 out of 24 councillors voted in favour to cancel the revocation of the development order at a special meeting in April.
This came as a shocker to Subang Jaya residents because the councillors had unanimously agreed to revoke the development order for the project in the October 2009 full-board meeting.
Sticking out: The billboard in the compound of the MBPJ landscape department building in Kelana Jaya.
As a city inhabited by a large number of middle and upper-class residents with buying power, Petaling Jaya has also been a gold mine for billboard operators.
Illegal billboards have been a long-standing issue for the council and the new guidelines implemented after 2008 have yet to show its effectiveness in ridding Petaling Jaya of the problem.
Even with the guidelines, residents still complain about new billboards being put up at places where they were not supposed to be at.
In December 2009, the councillors in the billboard inspection committee even allowed a billboard to be erected within the compound of its landscape department building in Kelana Jaya.
With a promise to remove the billboard within three months after the issue was highlighted, the giant billboard still stands inside the compound.
In Klang, the relocation of the bus terminal from the town centre to Klang Sentral in Meru, about 10km away, irked commuters and bus operators.
The decision to shift the bus terminal operation to the RM12mil custom-built transport hub caused frustration among the public, particularly the poor who depend on public transport to get around.
Many questioned the wisdom of the authorities to close the terminal and the need for new pick-up points at the North Klang bus terminal.
It was reported that several councillors are working against the state’s ruling to allow the North Klang bus terminal to operate.
These councillors, according to traders from the area, were desperate to prevent the buses from using the former terminal.
Even with the Pakatan government calling for competency, accountability and transparency, residents still end up being frustrated over the difficulty in getting information.
Most council full board and committee meeting minutes are still classified as confidential and, so far, none of the councillors from any of the councils seem to be interested in getting this changed.
IN PET+BLOGSPOT TOMORROW: Updates on MBPJ's Canine Advisory Activities and Latest Press Coverage.
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