Story by Victor Seow
Pix by Law Suun Ting
RESIDENTS of Wisma Taman Saibee at Jalan P. Ramlee have every reason to rejoice when state exco member for Town & Country Planning and Housing Jagdeep Singh Deo responded to their needs by supplying them with five new water tanks as well as new PVC piping as part of efforts to alleviate their difficulty of having clean water.
Jagdeep, who visited Taman Saibee on Sept 12 to view the newly installed amenities, was given a warm reception by the residents.
He also spoke to members of the press regarding the expenses incurred and how the state government will continue to fork out money to meet the urgent needs of the people.
“The cost of supplying the five water tanks was met through the 80-20 maintenance funds formula. The state government has given 80%, I as the ADUN for the area gave 10% and the residents came up with the remaining 10%. The total cost of this project is RM38,920,” Jagdeep said.
“For many years, the residents here had to put up with low water pressure because the previous metal pipes became narrow due to rust and the water wasn’t very clean too. Now we’ve changed all the piping to PVC ones and we’ll continue to work with the management committee to bring improvements to the two blocks here,” he added.
On a separate matter, Jagdeep also revealed that he had raised the issue of the 1Malaysia Housing Fund (TP1M) for the second time in a letter dated Sept 11 that was addressed to the director of Implementation Coordination Unit (ICU) in the Prime Minister’s Department.
Copies of the letter were distributed to the press.
In the letter, Jagdeep stated his concerns over the existence of TP1M which was not mentioned at all in the 11th Malaysia Plan.
Records show that a total of 118 applications for the funds to upgrade and maintain low cost and low medium cost housing projects in Penang have yet to be approved.
The total cost for these projects is estimated to be in the region of RM28 million.
Jagdeep also elaborated on the importance of the federal government to make a stand on this issue so as to enable the state to decide on its next move in meeting the housing needs of the people.
“Government agencies need to reply letters they receive, especially government-to-government correspondence. Efficiency is at stake here. Answer them instead of just leaving them just like that. Otherwise, what’s the point of writing letters?” he asked.