ENVIRONMENTAL organisations in Johor want the state government to include them in the task force that is being set up to address river pollution.
Safe Johor River founder Poh Paik Yik said the group had been advocating for a task force for more than 20 years.
Poh: Johorean want to see results with the setting up of the task force instead of more lip service.
He lamented that Johor would not be facing the current state of affairs if previous state governments had been serious in tackling the issue.
“It is better late than never but Johoreans want to see results with the setting up of the task force instead of more lip service.”
Poh suggested for the state government to establish a single task force to address the problem instead of having one involving several different agencies.
He added that having too many agencies involved would lead to overlapping of duties.
He is sceptical that the proposed task force would be able to clean, rehabilitate and rejuvenate dirty and polluted rivers by 2030 under the Johor Bersih agenda.
“It will take at least 20 to 30 years to clean the rivers starting now and Johor will need financial assistance from the Federal Government as the project requires a big budget.”
Poh advised the authorities to evacuate squatters living along riverbanks.
He also urged the authorities to stop economic activities along riverbanks like factory operations, vegetable farming and animal husbandry.
He said squatters, illegal factories and other groups were treating the rivers as open dumpsites by indiscriminately dumping rubbish and chemical effluents into the water.
Chow: Lack of coordination among agencies is one mainreason for river pollution in Johor.
Malaysian Nature Society president Vincent Chow said historically, river management was the purview of the Drainage and Irrigation Department (DID).
Chow said now, apart from DID, local authorities and the Environment Department (DOE) were also involved, causing confusion regarding directives.
“When things are good, everybody wants to take credit but when disasters or bad things happen, nobody wants to be accountable,” Chow said.
He proposed that the task of cleaning and managing rivers be given solely to DID, while DOE could focus on enforcement.
He also said the lack of coordination between the Johor and Federal governments was one main reason for the current situation.
Poh and Chow hope Mentri Besar Datuk Onn Hafiz Ghazi will consider allocating more funds to environmental groups when he tables the Johor Budget 2024 on Nov 23, 2023.
