Press Statement
by NGEH KOO HAM, DAP Perak Chairman & Assistant National Treasurer
on 9th April 2002
in Ipoh
The suggestion by Deputy Housing & Local Government
Minister, Datuk M. Kayveas to pay councilors fixed salary and
to increase their number from 24 to 36 per local government to overcome
the inefficiency of these councilors is most unacceptable.
The Government should look at the following reasons
which are the root cause of the councilors’ non-performance.
1.
Councillors are chosen as
rewards for the BN component party lower ranking members. They are not chosen
because of their commitment to serve the people.
2.
Councillors are appointed and not elected, so they have no sense of
accountability to the people.
3.
Appointed Councillors are beholden to those who appoint them and
therefore are afraid to raise objections on matters that do not benefit the
people.
4.
Councillors though paid an allowance only are known to covet a place in
the local government in order to facilitate the approval of their own projects
or to secure some local government’s contracts.
5.
There are no councilors from opposition parties in the local government
to encourage competition and to check abuses of councilors from BN component
parties.
Local government civil servants are already paid
fixed salaries yet we still see the local government’s inefficiency. Therfore,
giving councilors fixed salary will
not solve the problem. More importantly the public should not be further
burdened by paying fixed salary to councilors who have been proven for not doing
their job.
The people must also not be burdened further by
increasing the number of councillors in order to enable BN to reward more of its
members with Councillor posts.
The solution for a local government to have
hardworking and efficient councilors is to have local government election or in
the alternative to have proportional representation of councilors from the
opposition parties.