{"id":39446,"date":"2015-03-16T03:19:21","date_gmt":"2015-03-15T19:19:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/?p=39446"},"modified":"2015-03-16T03:19:21","modified_gmt":"2015-03-15T19:19:21","slug":"politics-necessary-even-in-garbage-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/politics-necessary-even-in-garbage-collection\/","title":{"rendered":"Politics necessary, even in garbage collection"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_1877\"<\/a>Improvements to local government is a question of change in ideology and the presence of politicians in local councils, the DAP has said.<\/p>\n

At the \u201cRevisiting the Athi Nahappan report\u201d conference organised by think-tank\u00a0Research for Social Advancement (REFSA) held last\u00a0Friday, Kluang MP Liew Chin Tong argued that a change in ideology would result in better governance at the local government level.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want a country that pays Malaysians better, I think it is not the Idris Jala formula, but the \u2018Liew Chin Tong formula\u2019, that is to pay garbage collectors better,\u201d he said during\u00a0the discussion.<\/p>\n

He said that under UMNO governance in Penang before Pakatan Rakyat had taken over, solid waste\u00a0 contracts were given to cronies. He refered to the Seberang Prai council in Penang, saying that it used to have more than a hundred 100 contractors, but when Pakatan took over, efforts were made to bring this number down to 30.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom\u00a0July 1,\u00a02014, the entire collection of solid waste and urban cleansing was entirely \u00a0taken in-house,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Liew, who is also DAP political education director,\u00a0said that the difference when there were 100 contractors, the contractors did not invest in machine tools, resulting in open top garbage trucks that carried waste as opposed to compactors.<\/p>\n

The reason for this was the short tenure given to contractors. This was also the reason why the contract was subcontracted twice.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will have no incentive to invest in machine tools. And knowing how contract jobs are given \u2013 you give to one contractor, the contractor would sub to another contractor, the third contractor will sub to another contractor, and the last guy who takes the contract would say well, I\u2019ve just got a small margin (profit), what can I do? I would hire foreign workers to do the job,\u201d he said, adding that this is how you see a Malaysian garbage truck driver with four or five foreign workers.<\/p>\n

He said that in Penang, the Pakatan led government took back all contracts within 5 years, and then hired 2,00 Malaysians at the salary of RM 1,500. Cost went up marginally, added to the state government\u2019s purchase of new machines, which cost another RM 20 million.<\/p>\n

However, the improved machinery and the increase in wages in the case of Seberang Prai meant that they had to cut foreign workers from\u00a0five to two\u00a0Malaysians,\u00a0but with better pay.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo is there ideology in garbage collection? Yes.\u201d<\/p>\n

This ideology he said was key in understanding how garbage collection is done, how to handle cronies and to generate more employment for more Malaysians.<\/p>\n

Liew said that since there was a need for ideology, there should be political leadership even at the bottom \u2013 local councils.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere must be leaders who are responsive to the public and also leading with vision,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

This was in response to suggestions that only Non Governmental Organizations (NGO\u2019s) and not politicians should be councilors.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo think that NGO councilors are of supreme intellect in not necessarily the answer to our questions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said that the solution to local government issues, is that government should not outsource thinking to private sector interests.<\/p>\n

The government, he said, should to play the part of a rubber stamp to approve ideas by the private sector or NGOs. Also, he added that its responsibility is not to play peacemaker between NGOs in when there are conflicting ideas.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want a government that thinks for itself and organises various interests in the society so that there are consistent and coherent policies,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

-The Rocket<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Improvements to local government is a question of change in ideology and the presence of politicians in local councils, the DAP has said. At the \u201cRevisiting the Athi Nahappan report\u201d conference organised by think-tank\u00a0Research for Social Advancement (REFSA) held last\u00a0Friday, Kluang MP Liew Chin Tong argued that a change in ideology would result in better […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39447,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[458],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-39446","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-current-affairs"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}