Tetapi inilah blog piece yang paling pedas dan kritikal dari bloggers yang hadir dinner bersama datuk.
Ini tulisan Syed Akbar Ali.
BLOGGER 4 - Syed Akbar Ali, ahli UMNO. http://syedsoutsidethebox.blogspot.com/2009/06/dinner-with-yb-dato-raja-nong-chik.html
Dinner with YB Dato Raja Nong Chik
By Syed Akbar Ali.
Yes the Bloggers did have dinner with YB Raja Nong Chik the Minister of the Federal Territory on Wednesday June 10th ‘09. And it was a good mix of Bloggers. There were the Right Wing Bloggers aka pro BN Bloggers (ultra right winger BigDog counts me as one of them) other wingers and also just Bloggers.
The other Bloggers were first of all Rocky’s Bru, Desiderata, My (Malaysian) Views, A Voice, I Am A Malaysian, De Minimis, Nuraina A. Samad, and Donplaypuks@.
I think first off Raja Nong Chik came across as the really new kid on the block in the Cabinet – he is a rookie Minister, taken out from Lembah Pantai straight into the Cabinet to hold the very important post of Minister of the Federal Territory. And he is learning the trade very quickly.
Although his functions oversee Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Labuan the real plum in the pudding, the jewel in the crown is our Federal capital of Kuala Lumpur. But the thorn in the flesh and the pain in the behind is the Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur the DBKL.
RNC acknowledged this himself when he said that out of 10 questions directed at him in Parliament, up to eight of the questions involve the DBKL’s goof ups, wrong doings and just bungling things up.
The DBKL has over 12,000 staff and was given an RM2.08bil budget for 2009 of which RM1.21bil (58.2%) was allocated for administration and RM869.1mil for development. This is a huge organization that has become a monster.
Without a doubt the DBKL has also helped the BN lose 10 Parliamentary seats in Kuala Lumpur. I hope RNC and Dato Seri Najib Tun Razak will pay particular attention to the deepest inner workings of the DBKL. The DBKL also suffers unnecessary intervention from the local politicians especially Federal Territory UMNO which also complicates matters. All this better stop.
After meeting us on Wednesday, Raja Nong Chik would have met the Persatuan Peniaga Wisma Yakin on Thursday to hear their grouses about the DBKL.
I think RNC is doing the right thing by getting direct feedback from the ground about what is really happening around Kuala Lumpur. But listening alone is not enough. There must be solid action. Otherwise people will feel even more insulted.
Buying the Bloggers dinner for example will not swing anything. Last night someone else bought dinner for the Bloggers too and I think more dinners are on the way. Many of the serious Bloggers are middle aged folks who watch their diet, but they care a lot for the future of their kids and the future of this country.
I was able to put across some of my concerns and complaints about the DBKL. Before the sun never set on the BN. It was blue everywhere. Now the scenario has changed completely. It is no more BN everywhere. And people voted for change because the BN’s delivery is falling down.
A case in point which I told RNC is the approval of building plans and development projects. The Pakatan Government in Selangor can approve single unit bungalow developments in just one day (Shah Alam, Kajang etc). They have fully utilized the One Stop Centre approach set up by the old BN Government in Selangor.
In terrible contrast the DBKL takes more than six months to approve a single unit bungalow project. There are hundreds of files that are waiting, waiting and waiting to be approved. The delays are due to poor system management. Of course when there are delays other demons appear who may offer to grease the path to slipperiness.
Considering that each of those backlogged files is worth at least RM1.0 million, it means hundreds of millions of Ringgit worth of development projects are not taking off in Kuala Lumpur. If all these projects are approved quickly, Kuala Lumpur will be humming with construction activity. The City can be its own economic stimulus. The DBKL does not seem to understand this very well.
I told RNC that many people can now make out the difference between DBKL and the Pakatan Government in Selangor. And people are beginning to talk about it. Contractors, architects and engineers (and there are plenty Malays there too) prefer to work outside the Federal Territory, beyond the clutches of the DBKL. There is less hassle to make a living.
We also spoke about the road closures, the really dense and wasteful Bazaar project in Jalan Masjid India and the problems that this project has caused. RNC acknowledged that one of the problems with DBKL is that it is a ‘closed service’ – meaning the DBKL staff cannot be transferred out to other branches of Government. So there is little renewal or rotation of Staff. Hence over time the people in the DBKL become entrenched and guard their turf like ‘warlords’. Inertia sets in and it is difficult to ‘move them’.
This situation really has to change. The BN cannot win back 10 seats in the FT when almost every citizen who has dealings with the DBKL complains about them.
I hope RNC also has good and committed staff around him in the Ministry of the Federal Territory. He has set up a Facebook site where anyone can write to him. I had written to him about the long delay in getting approval for a small project I am doing in Kuala Lumpur. He replied and said that someone from his office would call me. That was a couple of weeks ago.
Well until today, even after Wednesday’s dinner, no one has called me yet. At the dinner I even met one of RNC’s junior officers who had been tasked ‘to call me’. The young man said he would give me the name and number of someone else and ‘Encik Syed boleh call dia’. I think it was taichi. Well its Friday today. Still no calls.
We can see a genuineness about Raja Nong Chik. We wish him well. He has spent a lot of time with the NGOs, fighting for the simple folks and helping them with their problems.
He is also very unassuming. After the dinner was over we all stood on the steps to say goodbye to him. I was expecting his bodyguards and driver to drive up but they were nowhere to be seen. He and the Mrs had driven over by themselves. And although there was ample space for VIPs to park their cars at the Lobby (Sime Darby Convention Centre) he had parked his car at the carpark outside the fence and across the road. So the Minister and his wife walked off by themselves in the dark got into their car and drove off.
I really wish great success at the Ministry of the FT.
Sperti yang saya kata tadi, tulisan Syed ahli UMNHO ini ialah tulisan paling panas dari semua bloggers yang hadir malam itu, walaupun 4 dari mereka memang kuat Pakatan Rakyat. Namun seperti biasa Syed Akbar Ali memberikan hujah yang jelas dan ikhlas, serta juga cadangan untuk membaiki keadaan. Kita harap raja nong chik ambik tindakan terhadap apa yg dinyatakan Syed.
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