A LIDO resident and another from Kepayan have voiced their displeasure about the tendency of certain parties to deal with the overgrown greenery on their housing roads – or the silt inside their drains – only to leave the remnants from this work behind.
A Taman Fortuna consumer was unhappy about the garden waste lying in the common area in front of his house.
A Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB) contractor apparently pruned the branches of trees growing near the power lines in this part of the neighbourhood towards the end of June. More than two weeks had since elapsed and only some of the trimmings had been removed, according to him.
A Taman Selesa rate-payer, on the other hand, was upset about the mud piled up in places along his housing road.
A Roro bin was placed in one part of Taman Fortuna to house the trimmings from the work to keep the electricity lines free of any foreign objects in the vicinity.
This muck had apparently been dredged up from the base of the front-yard drains, when they were last cleaned “months ago”. He said the mounds had been left on the verge for so long that weeds had since found purchase in the dried mud.
Both individuals decried these maintenance efforts as being “half-hearted”. They provided Hotline with the pertinent information – including the location of these irregularities – which was forwarded to SESB and City Hall.
A spokesman for the former said a check of its records showed that the transmission lines in Taman Fortuna were cleared of foreign objects – including any creepers or branches which had extended into the air space of these cables – on June 27.
The contractor, tasked with carrying out this work, went back to the housing area with a Roro (roll-on-roll-off) bin to clear this debris on July 12, according to him.
“We were made to understand that the volume of the garden waste had grown over the interim period,” he said. “He told us that there were more trimmings at the site than what he had left behind.”
The mounds of mud left behind on this housing road in Taman Selesa are indicated above.
The individual suspected that some of those staying in the vicinity may have taken advantage of the situation to add their own garden waste to the pile, according to him.
“Owing to this, he did not remove all the cuttings from the road-side.
“When asked why it had taken 11 working days for him to deal with the trimmings, he told us that this was due to transportation problems. There were insufficient vehicles for him to use and he encountered some difficulty in renting the conveyance needed to remove the trimmings.”
The spokesman said the contractor had been instructed not to wait so long in future.
“He should gather up all the waste on the same day that he tends to the creepers and overgrown branches.
“We have also asked him to go back to Taman Fortuna and clear up the debris that remains.”
He said City Hall had formally informed SESB about the garden waste on the verge there.
“We received a letter from the agency about this matter last week.”
A worker is seen near the pruned trees along this road in Taman Fortuna shortly after this greenery was cut last month.
In the case of Taman Selesa, a spokeswoman for City Hall’s Landscaping Department attributed the piles of mud left behind on the roadside there to an oversight on the part of the government concessionaire.
She said this is not the first time that such a problem had been brought to the agency’s attention.
“Earlier this year, we learned about another pile of sludge which, for whatever reason, was just left on a pavement in Taman Richdar,” she said.
“The Manggatal rate-payer, who brought this to our attention, claimed that the company’s staff had been doing this, on and off, for years.”
She said many homeowners were under the impression that City Hall was to blame for such lackadaisical efforts to clear their drains, since they paid rates to the agency to look after these structures.
“It is unfair to expect our workers to step in and make up for the company’s shortfall.
She explained that the firm was responsible for cleaning the drains along housing roads in the State Capital, while the agency attended to those behind residences under its jurisdiction.
The spokeswoman said the senior administration at City Hall was hoping to hold a dialogue with the company’s management about the drain-clearing irregularities.
“We want to hold a meeting with the firm’s officers, as well as those from the co-ordinating authority, to come up with some kind of solution for the benefit of all our residential rate-payers in Kota Kinabalu.
