Provide tenants with garbage collection service, warns DBKK
Published on: Wednesday, November 29, 2023
By: Sidney Skinner
City Hall and KKHO officers checking on the common drain between the undeveloped land and Taman Inanam Jaya.
THE owners of some undeveloped land in Kg Tatahan, Inanam, will be asked to provide their tenants with a collection service to ensure that the garbage generated by those living on the property is disposed of the properly.
The rubbish is presently piled up in one part of the grounds and later burned openly, which poses both health and fire risks to the occupants of the land.
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A spokesman for City Hall’s Solid Waste Management Department (SWMD) said such a means of waste-disposal was ill advised and the agency would be writing to the landowners about this.
VCD staff having a word with one of the owners of the undeveloped land in Kg Tatahan.
“They will be advised on how to deal with the their tenants rubbish, including collecting a fee from each household so that the refuse can be removed two to three times a week by our workers,” he said.
He said a check of City Hall’s records found that the landowners had not yet signed up for this service.
The decision to notify these rate-payers about the garbage disposal was prompted after City Hall personnel noticed the mess at the dumpsite on the property, according to him.
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These personnel had been participating in a joint anti-dengue operation between City Hall and the “Pejabat Kesihatan Kawasan Kota Kinabalu (Kota Kinabalu Health Office)” in the village and Taman Inanam Jaya at the time. The spokesman said the outlet for the common drain on the boundary between the undeveloped land in Kg Tatahan and the neighbourhood was found to be clogged with bits of rubbish.
The dumpsite on the land, where the garbage is incinerated, poses health and fire risks to the occupants.
On top of the SWMD, personnel with several City Hall Departments – including Environmental Heath, Enforcement, Building Control, Suburban and Traffic and Transport – participated in the operation.
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A spokeswoman for the agency’s Environmental Health Department (EHD) said staff with its Vector Control Division (VCD) provided the tenants with pointers on what they could do to ensure that an outbreak didn’t occur in their area.
“This included frequently tidying up their surroundings and spraying their living areas with aerosols.”
She said VCD personnel even managed to have a word with one of the landowners who happened to be around while the Operation was in progress.
“He told our staff that he had recently come down with dengue and had only just recovered.
“Our staff encouraged him to hold a ‘gotong-royong’ (community clean-up) regularly on the property.”
The spokeswoman said City Hall would be notifying him and the other co-owners of the property about the buildings, including a workshop, which had been illegally erected on the property.
“Building Control staff noted that the buildings were not strategically placed and none of them had been approved by their Department.”
Where Taman Inanam Jaya was concerned, she said six dengue cases – including one fatality – had surfaced in the neighbourhood, prior to the Operation.
She said the agency’s Enforcement officers had spotted an abandoned car on one of the housing roads there.
“They are trying to trace the owner’s details. A relocation noticed will be served to whoever this vehicle belongs to.”
The SWMD spokesman said a total of 100 pamphlets regarding its Pre-paid Bulk and Garden Waste collection and the cleanliness of the common area were left in post boxes or personally handed to homeowners in the housing area.
A spokesman for the Kota Kinabalu Health Office said its officers worked together with EHD staff to get rid of any items which could become potential breeding grounds for Aedes mosquitoes at Kg Tatahan and Taman Inanam Jaya.
He explained that a “wabak” (outbreak) was deemed to have occurred in a particular area if two or more dengue cases were reported within a 200 metre radius.
“The outbreak would be considered closed, if no one else in this area comes down with the disease in the following two weeks,” he said.
“Should the opposite happen, then the situation will be categorised as a ‘wabak tidak terkawal (rampant outbreak)’.
“A locality is dubbed a ‘hotspot’, if cases keep cropping up past the 30-day point.”
The spokesman said no larvae samples were taken from any of the homes at either location during the Operation.
“Any samples we take are tested at the Health Department’s laboratories. A positive result would see the owner of the premises compounded up to RM500.”
“The wrong-doer could be deemed to have created a potential habitat for mosquitoes, under the Destruction of Disease-bearing Insects Act 1975 (Amendment 2002),” he said.
“He/she will initially be asked to get rid of the objects in which the insects were spawning.”
Section 8 of the ordinance stipulates that “a Medical Officer of Health or an inspector may in writing order the owner or occupier of any premises… to collect and remove empty tins, cans, bottles or other receptacles in which diseasebearing insects may breed”.
“Any person who…fails or neglects to comply with any written order… shall be guilty of an offence”.
The spokesman said first time offenders risked being slapped with a RM10,000 fine, a two year jail-term or both.
Repeat offenders, on the other hand, faced the possibility of having to shoulder a RM50,000 fine, serve a five year prison sentence or both, according to him.
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