Kota Kinabalu: A contractor who was already warned after he was caught cutting a section of the hill near Kg Kopungit in Sembulan, took the opportunity of Wesak Day to continue cutting more of the hill, aware that City Hall staff will be on holiday.But what is surprising is that City Hall merely asked him to come to the headquarters to explain his action of ignoring the first warning issued 10 days earlier.There was no mention of what punitive action would be meted out for openly defying the local authority.
ADVERTISEMENT
A City Hall spokesman said it had not approved the contractor's activities as "no building plan for the work" had been submitted beforehand."Our enforcement officers caught the contractor while he and his workers were clearing the land during an inspection on May 3 (the day that Daily Express highlighted the concerns of a member of the public)," she said.
"The individual has been asked to come to our headquarters to explain his actions."A check of City Hall's records revealed that the earth work was taking place on "tanah simpanan perkampungan anak negeri (kampung reserve land)" for Kg Kopungit.
ADVERTISEMENT
Another spokesman for the agency's Community Wellbeing Department said a stop-work notice was issued to the contractor on April 16.He said this document was despatched after a joint-inspection between City Hall staff and the Kg Kopungit Village Chief 10 days earlier confirmed that hill was being cut illegally.
ADVERTISEMENT
"The contractor was warned that action would be taken against him under our Building By-Law if he did not cease the earth-work right away," he said.On April 29, an officer from the agency's Engineering Section conducted a follow-up inspection."The personnel noted that the hill had been cut but did not find any workers or machinery of any kind at the site," he said. Trees on a vast area of land on the slope, which overlooked the sea, had been cleared.
Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
"I fear there may be a landslide because of the haphazard manner in which the trees on the hill have been cut down and the soil has been dug up," said the reader who alerted the paper.He hoped City Hall would intervene in this matter before the situation got out of hand.
