Metro

Thursday November 5, 2009

A sheer waste of poor people’s time


FRUSTRATION and disappointment are feelings that the residents of Jinjang Utara Longhouse are familiar with. They have been sidelined by the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) and political appointees countless times in the past and when it happened again to them on Tuesday, the residents lost their cool.

A group led by Selangor and the Federal Territory Community Association president Tan Jo Hann went to the DBKL to enquire about their living conditions and find out why they were not offered the opportunity to buy PPR units — instead, they were kept waiting for two hours.

After being given the run-around by the DBKL staff, the residents walked out. A visibly upset Tan lost his temper and tore up the DBKL letter inviting them for the dialogue session.

“This is typical DBKL attitude. These people are living below the poverty line and many took unpaid leave or annual leave just to be here. They should not be treated like this,” said Tan.

Taxi driver A. Kumar, a resident, said he was looking forward to getting information from the DBKL.

“When we heard that the Government is offering units for sale I was so happy that I cried. I thought this was a chance for my children to live in a decent and conducive environment. But the way we were treated was rude and it was so disappointing,’’ he said.

Resident Angie Ong said: “We are hoping to be given a PPR unit to either rent or buy. We waited 16 years for this. Our living conditions are worse off than living in a squatter house.

On Oct 10, the Prime Minister had announced that 44,146 units of the PPR under DBKL as well as PPR MTEN units in Federal Territories Kuala Lumpur would be sold to residents.

In 2002, the families were given notices to relocate from their present site to another longhouse about 500m away. They were told that DBKL wanted to build low-cost units for the residents.

DBKL with a private developer, Mega Legacy, agreed to build low-and medium cost units at the price of RM42,000 and RM60,000 per unit. They were guaranteed the units would be ready in three years and they would be given priority to buy.

A total of 48 familes rejected the offer and were relocated to PPR Beringin while the rest decided to trust the DBKL and moved to the new longhouses nearby.

The “new” longhouse units turned out to be built from shoddy material and was soon falling apart. Three years later only the medium-cost units were completed.

Till today, 200 familes are still waiting for the completion of the low-cost units which have since been abandoned.

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