(Petaling Jaya, Thursday): A group of residents from SS4A had at the end of December 2005 came to me to complain that vehicles coming from Jalan SS2/3 would take an easy turn to cut-into SS4A , which is prohibited as the road is painted with double lines, indicating that vehicles are not allowed to cut-in into Jalan SS4A/4.

It is also learnt that such cut-in is also dangerous in nature as head-on collision may easily happen when drivers coming out from Jalan SS4A/4 are always unaware of any cutting-in vehicles.

In view of this, the group of concerned residents in SS4A had called-up MPPJ officers numerously to install Polyurethane road dividers (as shown in picture) to prevents vehicles from cutting-in.

Unfortunately, MPPJ turned a deaf ear to them. I personally on 3^rd January 2006 wrote-in to the YDP of MPPJ, Y. Bhg. Dato’ Ahmad Termizi to highlight the issue, with the letter carbon-copied to Puan Sharipah Marhaini bt Syed Ali (Director, MPPJ Department of of Development Planning) and Encik Abdul Shukor bin. Mohamed Noor (Director, MPPJ Department of Development and Maintenance)

In my letter, I have requested MPPJ to reply my letter in TWO-week time to update what action has been taken, or will be taken by MPPJ to resolve the matter. (Please refer to letter attached).

2 weeks passed and not only there is no action from MPPJ, but there is not any official reply from MPPJ as to what action will be done by MPPJ.

I called up the Department of Development and Maintenance of MPPJ on 19th January 2006 only to find out that MPPJ will definitely start installing the dividers by the week (which was a week ago), despite calling up the offices more than 6 times on the same day. In order to hold them accountable, I had requested the department to reply me in black-and-white but i have receive nothing to date though I had given them my email address, mobile number as well as fax number.

If MPPJ were to continue with this kind of working culture of continue to turn a deaf ear to taxpayers complaints, PJ folks will have every reason to stage objection to the new 10% increment in assessment tax.

Petaling Jaya will obtain city status in 2006, but this will be meaningless for PJ folks if accountability and transparency are still seriously lacking in MPPJ. To restore confidence of taxpayers in MPPJ, let’s make MPPJ accountable by restore local authority election. Proper checks-and-balances must be in place for a healthy democratic “PJ City”.