My Selangor Budget 2017 Wishlist
Rajiv
Rishyakaran
State
Assemblyman for Bukit Gasing
As our Selangor Government prepares for the upcoming Budget 2017, I
would like to take this opportunity to propose 8 items, that I hope could be
part of the coming budget.
- Speed
up the pipe replacement program launched this year
I wholeheartedly welcome
the pipe replacement program launched by our MB this year. As of the beginning
of this year, 84 pipe burst hotspots have been identified by Syabas. 12 of
these hotspots are undergoing pipe replacement now, and the balance 72 are
scheduled to be done over the next 3 years.
Selangor suffers from a
very high pipe burst incident rate, a whopping 5000-6000 cases a year. Asbestos-Cement
(AC) pipes are only 6000km out of the 28000km of pipes in Selangor, but they
account for approximately half of all burst pipes. Every burst pipe case will
cause water disruption and hardship, sometimes for a smaller group and other
times for a larger group of residents, depending on the size of the pipe
affected.
I would like to suggest we
increase our budget to speed up the pipe replacement program. Instead of doing
11 hotspots in 2017, I would like to propose that Selangor complete the 72
identified hotspots in 2017. Pipe replacement, by rule of thumb, cost RM900,000
to RM1,000,000, and this would make the replacement of the 72 hotspots cost approximately
RM350-400mil.
This would not only require
additional cash from the government’s reserves, but will also require Air
Selangor to quickly increase its capacity to carry out that many projects in a
year. I also propose that this increase in capacity be planned to reach target
of RM500mil a year (500km/year) worth of pipe replacement works, as we have a
huge back log to catch up.
I trust that this use of
our hard earned reserves would be dearly appreciated by residents, especially
in areas most affected by burst pipes and water disruptions.
- Encourage
rain water harvesting
Selangor residents consume
a rather high amount of water daily, as compared with international norms.
Selangor citizens consume approximately 250 litres per person per day, which is
much higher compared to our neighbouring countries such as Thailand with only
about 160 to 170 litres per day per person, Singapore (130-150 litres per day
per person) and Indonesia (140-160 litres per day per person).
Selangor has launched a
“save water” campaign recently, but more needs to be done to create awareness
of how we can reduce our consumption of treated water. One of
the ways is to help Selangor houses to use less water is to get houses to
install rain water harvesting systems.
I propose
a decent, maybe 50% subsidy on installation cost for the first 10000 homes to
subscribe to this. This can be focused on districts that are most prone to
water shortages. A smaller subsidy can be offered to the next 100,000 homes.
This is to encourage widespread adoption.
In
addition to saving water, if rain water harvesting is widely installed, it can
contribute towards reducing the load on our drainage systems during heavy
downpours.
- RM150mil
to improve public transport usage
I applaud the ambition of
our MB is calling for a 60% public transport usage target in Selangor. No
Metropolis the size of the Klang Valley anywhere is the world has done well
without excellent public transport.
While some aspects of
providing public transport are under the purview of the Federal government, I
urge the state to consider investing a substantial sum, approximately RM150mil
to develop supporting infrastructure to enable us to use public transport more
effectively.
Areas that we can and
should invest in are like developing
- Park
and Ride facilities, especially for all MRT, LRT and KTM stations in the
suburbs. This would enable those living further away from the stations to
easily ride the train into the city.
- Pedestrian
Connectivity – all properties within a 500m distance from any station
should have a proper pedestrian walkway, to encourage walking to and from
the station.
- Good
Bus Stops – Bus stops that provide shelter, and information of the bus
routes plying the area. To do this properly, we would need the
cooperation of SPAD.
- All
Local Councils in the Klang Valley should emulate MBPJ in drawing up a
public transport masterplan, a plan that will map out feeder bus routes
to connect all our townships to MRT, LRT or KTM stations. This would be
an enabler for people to have greater access to public transport.
- SMART
Selangor
In line with the new theme
for Selangor – SMART Selangor, I would like to suggest that in 2017, the
Selangor State Government makes all services and applications that are now done
over the counter available over the internet and smart phone applications.
This covers applications
and services in various departments and local councils. While we already have
some of the major services online, it is timely that we strive to make ALL
services online, to make life easier for our residents. This does not mean
abolishing the counter services, those should remain to serve residents who
prefer face to face transactions.
- Senior
Citizen Activity Center
We have an aging society in
Selangor, particularly in Petaling Jaya. For those who are retired, I propose
we create a few activity centers, that would operate in the day time to meet
the needs of seniors in our society.
It would be a sort of club
house, where there would be a reading some, karaoke, game room, a senior
friendly gym, meeting rooms, etc. I propose a few rounds of public consultation
to work out the finer details, should the Selangor Government take this up.
- RM5mil
for each constituency for medium size projects
I share the similar views
with our MB, that Selangor should continue to focus on development. For 2016,
Selangor hit a record for appropriating 50% of its budget for development
purposes, which is a rather high ratio compared to other states and our Federal
Government.
For 2017, I envisage that
we would be remaining on this same part. I would like to propose that part of the
development budget be determined locally, to address the specific needs of
local communities in Selangor.
Selangor is a vast state,
with nearly 6 million residents living in many townships. Each township would
have its specific needs, such as upgrading its market, building a community
hall, building or upgrading sports facilities. I would like to propose RM5million
per constituency
It would be an added bonus
if we could implement a voting system to allow residents within a community to choose which project they
would like. I understand there may be some constraints in implementing this in
the short term, but it should be our aim to work towards participatory budgeting.
- Government
should take over the maintenance of low cost and low medium cost flats in
Selangor.
In Malaysia, each strata
property is managed by either a Joint Management Body (JMB) or Management
Corporation (MC). These bodies are elected throught AGMs by all parcel owners.
While higher end
condominiums and apartments typically work well under this structure, there are
many low cost and low medium cost flats in Selangor that do not have the
required JMB or MC. This is not surprising as many of the owners’ shy away from
attending AGMs that form these bodies.
This has caused many low
cost and low medium cost flats to be poorly maintained, leading to poor living
conditions for our residents. I would like to propose, with the intention of
uplifting the building quality of these flats, a Selangor government subsidiary
to be appointed to run these apartments, even at a loss.
There is no doubt that for
the interim take over period, monthly maintenance fees may not be sufficient to
cover the cost of maintaining the flats. Thus, the government should subsidize
part of the running cost as our social obligation.
This propose moved will not
be unique. In Singapore, the HDB flats are maintained by town councils. This
has proven to be effective in ensuring that upkeep work is not reliant on
monthly dues, but on government budget, specification and oversight. Maintenance fees must still be collected, and
I propose capping the fees at RM45/month for low cost flats and RM65/month for
low medium cost flats. This figures are only a preliminary suggestion, and there
should be further deliberation and discussion.
We should also work towards
minimizing losses in this operations. 2 suggestions that I have are to ensure
>80% dues paid by enforcement. There are enough provisions in law to enable government
to prosecute those refusing to pay their monthly dues. Special provisions thru
the Welfare Department should be available for residents who truly cannot
afford to pay.
The 2nd
suggestion is to step up enforcement in these flats. Enforcement officers,
after sufficient publicity, must be making their rounds to catch vandals. Vandalism
is not only wrong and disruptive, it is costly to the body maintaining the
flats, and must be eradicated.
- Update
all Local Plans
Selangor
will be releasing the Selangor Structure Plan 2035 soon. This is the overall
masterplan document for town planning in Selangor. In the draft, there were
many standards prescribed, which I welcome. Standards such a green space
provision, social amenities, utilities and so on should not only be applicable
for new townships, but also for existing mature townships.
Towards
this objective, and to realize the full value of the Selangor Structure Plan 2035,
I would like to request that we allocate sufficient funding in our 2017 budget,
to enable all the local plans (detailed masterplans at the local council level)
to be updated to cater to the prescribed standards as best as possible.
Local
plans should be updated to ensure social amenities such as schools, fire
stations, funeral parlours, green spaces are sufficient for the projected
population of each township. As highlighted in the draft structure plan, many
of our townships suffer a lack of these amenities, either due to previous town
planning shortcomings, or an increase in standards in recent years.
Updating
all the local plans in Selangor is the very minimum to ensure the work of
producing the State Structure Plan was not in vain, and to work towards
improving the quality of life in our townships.
