SELCAT: No Support from Central Government, Disrupts Selangor from Tackling Floods

SHAH ALAM, 20 Feb: The Central Government did not provide adequate provisions to the Department of Irrigation and Drainage (DID), which resulted in the flood problem in the state to not be resolved completely.

This was acknowledged by the State DID Director, Ab Qahar Osman, in a public hearing of the Select Committee on Competency, Accountability and Transparency (SELCAT) regarding the 2012/2013 budget expenditure for flood mitigation management by the DID.

He said that the Federal Government provided allocations, but only for special projects.

4.1

In relation to that, insufficient provisions allowed the DID to only perform drainage maintenance once a year, when it requires maintenance four times a year.

“Areas with drains must be maintained four times a year, for example in Klang. However, we are only able to perform maintenance once a year,” he said, answering a question from the SELCAT Chairman, Hannah Yeoh.

Qahar also informed that the total cost to implement the master plan for flood mitigation in Klang is RM1 billion.

“The Master Plan was completed in 2009.

“This is similar for the survey and designing process. It takes a long time, at least six to eight months, before calling the tender,” he said.

He also acknowledged that the major problem in solving flood problems stems from design and insufficient engineers.

4.2

“There are over 800 DID staff, however only one engineer is appointed for each district,” he said.

In addition, he said that apart from Klang, the Petaling district and Kajang only have a Master Plan.

“For the district of Petaling, only Serdang and Seri Kembangan, and Kajang in Bandar Kajang have it.

“While the districts that recorded the most flood complaints are Klang, Petaling, Gombak and Hulu Langat,” he said.

When asked on the follow-up to discuss the problem with the State Government, Qahar only answered that the application for additional provisions submitted by the DID was approved annually by the State Government.

In Selangor, the DID is responsible for solving flood problems. However, the DID is a federal department under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.

Therefore, management and development funds and provisions are from the Central Government.

Provisions for the Selangor DID were included in the Tenth Malaysia Plan (10MP), while the State Government is only responsible for paying the salaries of officers and DID staff working in the state.

Previously, the DID informed that they had applied for RM1 billion from the Central Government to solve the flooding problem, including carrying out management, cleaning and river maintenance.

Although this provision was included in the 10MP, the application was categorised as in the third degree.


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