Sinsuran shophouse owners, tenants risk hefty fines if…
Published on: Thursday, April 13, 2023
By: Sidney Skinner
City Hall personnel trying to persuade the tenants they met to dispose of their garbage responsibly.
THOSE staying at the Sinsuran shophouses in the City risk having to pay a fine for as much as RM10,000 if they persist in dumping their rubbish directly onto the five-footways and cantilevers around the building.A spokesman for City Hall’s Solid Waste Management Department (SWD) said such a penalty could be imposed under its Anti-Litter 2005, as well as its Hygiene and Conservancy 1984, By-laws.
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“Anyone who repeatedly disregards our calls to refrain from littering in the common areas could wind up having legal action taken against them,” he said.
“They will become liable to a fine, if they are found guilty in court.”
SWD personnel in the midst of delivering clean-up notices to those staying at the Sinsuran shophouses.
He said a total of 250 “notis pemberishan (clean-up notices)” had been served to the tenants and owners of units at the shophouses over the past four months.
“The recipients were formally instructed to make use of the nearest bin-centre to dispose of their garbage.
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“They were warned that they could be slapped with a compound of up to RM500 if they were caught doing so anywhere else.”
The spokesman said the Department’s personnel delivered 50 of these documents as part of a “Ops Bersepadu Menanangi Wabak Dengue (Joint Operation to Fight Dengue)” between the agency and the Kota Kinabalu Health Office (KKHO) in December.
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“There was concern that Aedes mosquitoes could begin breeding in the rainwater which collected in any of the unwanted items among the rubbish strewn about the common areas around the shophouses.
Two litterbugs in the Sinsuran area being compounded by SWD staff recently.
“This fear was not unfounded as our peers from the KKHO took a larvae sample from the fluids inside a container at one of the premises here.” He said another 200 notices were issued during a separate SWD exercise in January.
“Our staff personally gave these documents to any tenants who were present in both instances.
“They tried to impress on those they met why it was important not to simply throw their rubbish down onto the common areas outside, including the ledges around the building.”
He said the SWD was preparing to have another batch of notices served to the occupants and owners, after senior officers with City Hall noticed that refuse was still being indiscriminately disposed of in this part of Sinsuran last month.
“Some of those present during this inspection remarked that the mounds of waste was likely to be aggravating the rat-problem here.”
On top of notifying those living and working here, the spokesman said SWD staff conducted “Ops Bersih (cleanliness operations)” regularly in Sinsuran and the surrounding areas.
SWD workers sweeping up the mess left behind along this back alley in Sinsuran.
To this end, he said, the Department’s personnel patrolled Jalan Datuk Chong Thian Vun, Jalan Kamunta, Jalan Dua Puluh and Jalan Sembilan Belas, as well as the back alleys between the different buildings there.
“Any litterbugs are compounded on the spot according to what is stipulated in our Anti-Litter By-Laws 1984 (Amendment 2005),” he said on April 12.
“Four members of the public in the Sinsuran and Centre Point areas were caught in the act today.
“Three of the wrong-doers settled the compounds they received there and then.” He said workers with the SWD had also performed community cleanups on “one or two occasions” around Sinsuran over the past few months.
“They attended to the pedestrian malls between the different blocks of shophouses and the pavements behind these buildings.
“We will try to tidy up and make the common areas more presentable, from time to time, but we need the public in the area to step up and do their part to look after their surroundings.”
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