KAMPUNG DATUK KERAMAT NEW MARKET READY SOON

At long last……Folks of Kampung Datuk Keramat will finally get their new market scheduled for opening this August. My mother whose home is a short walking distance away from the new market, can now sigh in relieve after a wait of more than a decade. This, I suppose is the longest period taken by any Malaysian contractor to complete a project. I think, the construction of the Penang bridge took a much shorter period to complete, than this.

I don’t really know the reasons for the long delay in completing the market. One can come up with several guesses, but I think DBKL should assume full responsibility for the delay, for reason that they were the authority to award the contract. However, in the Malaysian scenario, it is fairly normal for the authorities not to accept blame for any failure of projects. Normally, fingers will start to be pointed at others, and even if the resultant failure involves a huge lost of public funds, this is of little concern to the authorities.

I was told that the YB Dr. Lo Lo Ghazali, Member of Parliament for Titiwangsa recently visited the market, as part of her tour of her constituency. It was reported that the visit had the full knowledge of BDKL, and as an MP, Dr. Lo Lo had expected officers from DBKL to be present to brief her. However, no officers were present, which clearly reflects poorly upon DBKL, as administrators of the project. I suppose, had YB Dr. Lo Lo been a BN MP, I am not at all surprise if the Mayor himself will be present.

From the above, one can expect the other 10 opposition MP’s within the Federal Territory to suffer a similar fate i.e. the lack of support from the authorities of DBKL, who now seem to be acting like politicians. I wish to reiterate that the actions of DBKL not to lend support to the people’s elected representatives in their constituencies, may be counter productive to the BN government itself.

And clearly, if this is to be the attitude of DBKL authorities for the remaining period prior to the next General Elections, I can bet that the losses to the BN will be even more catastrophic.