10-point reformation for Perak - Star

Aug 12, 2008 By CLARA CHOOI

ALL the 15 local councils in Perak must allow the public and pressmen to attend their monthly full board meetings.

State Education, Local Government, Housing and Public Transport Committee chairman Nga Kor Ming said the state government made this mandatory to ensure transparency in the councils’ administration.

“Everyone must be allowed to attend the meetings so they can witness for themselves the decision-making process in the local councils,” he told reporters after an inaugural meeting with the state’s council presidents here recently.

Nga however advised those interested to attend the meetings to pre-register their attendance at the relevant local councils to reserve seats for themselves.

The new ruling is among the 10-point reformation to local government policies that was proposed during the meeting.

“We have also decided to have uniformity in the state’s coupon parking system by implementing the ‘one-state, one-system’ parking policy.

“By Jan 1 next year, motorists can use one type of parking coupon at all council parking lots statewide.”

He added that where there were parking meters, motorists would not have to buy parking coupons.

Nga said that the state had also made it compulsory for council presidents to “turun padang” (do fieldwork) every Wednesday and remain in their offices every Tuesday to receive public complaints.

“Each local council must also provide the state government with annual reports on its performances based on key performance indicators.

“From there, the state will evaluate each employee’s service records and identify areas which need to be improved on,” he said.

Nga said from next month, each local council would have a “muhibbah counter” manned by all three races to aid those who were unable to converse in Bahasa Malaysia.

Other reforms include all council enforcement staff in the state being required to wear similar uniforms from January next year, a committee to be set up amongst the local councils, Perak Water Board, Telekom Malaysia and Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) to coordinate the installation of services, each local government will identify sites such as new housing premises to collect assessments, and local authorities will only approve the construction of new housing schemes or buildings if they include built-in rubbish bin areas.

“For the old homes, we have temporarily decided to hold-off compounding those who do not have rubbish bins at their homes. However, the local councils will send remin-ders to owners of premises,” he said.

He reminded those applying for new cyber-cafe licences to stick to tight rules imposed by the state or risk being shut down.