Enough of barring of opposition elected reps: MP
Published on: Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Penampang: The government must do away with politics and allow assemblymen and MPs from the opposition full access to local authorities if it is serious in addressing flood problems that have caused so much despair to the locals here.Penampang MP Darell Leiking said the people's representatives must be allowed to participate directly with the District Council, the District Action Committees and all departments in the district without being barred just because they are on the other side of the political divide."In this way, we can plan out, strategise and most of all, execute and implement what should be done for Penampang. Enough of barring the opposition from being part of the local authorities.
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"We are elected by the people of Penampang. There must be a time to do new things and that is to look at us not as the opposition, but as the representatives of the people of Penampang," he said.The people in Penampang are represented by two state assemblymen in Kepayan and Moyog and by Darell in Parliament. All three are held by opposition parties with Kepayan Assemblyman Dr Edwin Bosi in Democratic Action Party (DAP), while Moyog Assemblyman Terrence Siambun and Darell are from Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR).Darell said in light of another flash flood that brought Penampang to its knees again on Sunday, it is not surprising that the people are fast running out of patience with the authority.During his personal visits to some of the houses in the district, he said the people are left to cleaning up the mess which could have been greatly reduced should those in the corridors of power take their responsibility seriously.
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Darell stated that it is obvious that those who lost hundreds of thousands if not millions in value, including the loss of working days, and for those who are facing the yearly end examinations such as SPM would not have had to endure the incessant flooding had it not been for the clogged drains, the earthwork which brought about mud floods, including poor town planning.He said merely proposing litigation and prosecution of those responsible and announcing mitigation works would come to naught if the responsibility is not undertaken.
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"The flood mitigation project announced in June 2015 remains just a mere billboard even though some works seems to have been done. "How long can we expect for this to remain stagnant as we know very well that whilst we can't fight nature and her might, but with a little bit of heart, belief and innovation, we can surely reduce the impact of such natural event such as heavy rains and storms by just innovating and solving what man can do to mitigate," he said.Meanwhile, he urged the authorities to start charging and imposing what the laws allow them to do on irresponsible developers and contractors who do not clean up after their work as this too has been a huge contributor to manmade blockages of drains.The same, he said, should also apply to the local authorities if they failed to clean up what they should have in the first place as the local authorities."I also note that there is a serious need to improve our emergency relief and evacuation protocols. It seems that there is a poor coordination if not the lack of materials or assets such as simple boats, emergency arsenals and even cleaning up facilities which should be included in every district.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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