Hello, Councillor ah?

The word is out! The handphone numbers of the Councillors were published in the local dailies and the calls started coming in. Not congrats and well-wishes, mind you!

A typical call would sound like this, "Hello? Councillor ah? Why the rubbish not collected ah? One week already oh!" And my reply would usually be, "Thank you for calling. Which area/road..." CLICK! Hey, how can I do my job if you don't tell me where??!! Sometimes, they do tell or show me but it would be outside my jurisdiction (we have been given designated areas). My 'territory' is Kg Baru (Barat) Mambang Di Awan [Fairies in the Clouds] and a few surrounding housing areas. And callers would complain about the rubbish in Jeram (about 10km away) or the lighting in Gopeng (20km away). Anyway, we take all these in stride, it has become our collective responsibility so we help each other and we forward the complaints to the relevant authories, which, by the way, is not just the local council.

Getting to know the actual authorities involved is a minefield: "This is not my problem" being the most usual answer, the next being, "I don't know."

A common issue is the repair, maintenance and upgrading of roads. The major roads are under the Public Works Department (JKR) but the smaller roads are under the council. Sometimes the Land Office is called in. Other agencies that could get involved would be the Road Safety Department (JKJR) and Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (MIROS). And if the road sides are affected, the Department of Irrigation & Drainage (DID), sewerage concessionaire IndahWater and other affected authorities (TNB, TM etc) are roped in.

Street lighting is under Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) but since the electricity bill is paid by the Council so complains must go through the Council for action to be taken.

And of course, rubbish, the most common of all complains. I have seen how some people would throw rubbish out of their cars or off their bikes while passing a dump (or not).The bags would break or miss the dump and land in the drain or among the bushes. And then the complaints would come in about the odour, the sight, the dogs etc.

Be fair to the council's sanitation workers. Even though they are paid to carry out their duty, they cannot be expected to pick up after everyone. The residents need to be responsible in putting the rubbish bags where they belong (in the dump, not the recycling bins, and certainly not anywhere they like!).

And who pays what? The annual assessments that residents pay is usually not enough to settle even three months' electricity bill for public utilities for the same area! So the Council is dependent on licenses and business assessments, revenue from rentals of Council properties, the State Government (which is actually quite poor) and the Federal Government (where all our taxes goes to and from where should most of the funding be from). Being apolitical (as are most residents), this gives rise to a dilemma.