04 January 2017

Chairman: MPP needs more enforcement officers

KUCHING: Padawan Municipal Council (MPP) is in need of a strong enforcement section to put in force the local council’s by-laws in its area of jurisdiction.

Its chairman Lo Khere Chiang said despite covering a huge area, MPP currently has only seven enforcement officers to look after a population of about 400,000 and 60,000 properties.

For this reason, he said MPP really needed the right and capable people to go to the ground to enforce its by-laws, particularly in tackling illegal hawking and illegal buildings.

“When I say the right and good people, I mean strong leaders who have got the experience and ability to carry out their duties professionally and well.

“We don’t need more manpower to just make up the numbers. We need people who really can serve the council and the people efficiently and effectively,” he told The Borneo Post yesterday.

Comparatively, Lo, who is Batu Kitang assemblyman, claimed that the enforcement strength of Kuching South City Council (MBKS) and Kuching North City Commission (DBKU) was over 10 times more than MPP’s for many years.

“I was given to understand that MBKS and DBKU currently have not less than 70 enforcement officers going to the ground to enforce the by-laws while we have only seven.

“I have been promised new officers since last year, but until today I have not received any additional staff,” he lamented.

With such limited manpower in the enforcement unit, it was difficult to cover all areas, he stressed.
He said aside from illegal hawking and illegal structures, the enforcement team also had to tackle numerous other problems including illegal cyber cafes and reflexology centres.

Besides lack of enforcement officers, Lo lamented that MPP was also operating with limited manpower in the engineering unit.

“We need more qualified and experienced engineers, especially technical engineers to oversee the implementation of projects within our area of jurisdiction.

“There are a lot of projects being implemented under the rural transformation programme (RTP), minor rural projects (MRP) and MPP’s own projects.

“We need additional technical engineers to supervise these projects,” he said.

MPP now looks after six state constituencies – Batu Kawah, Kota Sentosa, a small part of Batu Lintang and Matang, Telaga Air and Bengoh – which are under three members of Parliament.

Unlike previously when MPP could recruit its own staff, recruitment of manpower for all local councils is now done by the State Secretary, he added.

“I hope the promise made to me to have additional staff, especially in our enforcement and engineering units, will be fulfilled this year,” he said.

January 3, 2017, Tuesday

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