rich councillors
filed in government, politics |
on Oct.23, 2006
just look at the two mansions owned by them!! left, partly completed belongs to mazylnoor while right belongs to zakaria.
something burned inside me when i saw a heading in the star paper front page yesterday. no, it was not the deepavali light… it was my anger. 
burning anger! i was pretty mad when i read that a ‘second councillor builds mansion without approval‘.
now, earlier, we had already heard of one councillor, zakaria, who build a 4 storey mansion without approval, a mansion that stick out like a sore thumb as it was amongst all those low cost homes. and so far the klang council only fined him RM5,000! selangor’s menteri besar, khir toyol, though had mentioned a fine of 10x the fees of submitting building plans i.e. RM24,000.
ah, so this 2nd councillor who was found to illegally build his mansion will be fined RM24,000 too and that’s it? so it is ok to break the law, then let them be fined and be done with it?
well, if they can afford to build such an expensive mansion, a sum of RM24, 000 would be peanuts to them. which brings to mind, how come councillors are so damn rich? can afford to build such a huge expensive mansion!
ok back to this 2nd councillor, mazlynoor… do you know what he said when contacted by the star?
“everyone’s doing it. but my house is so small.”
goodness gracious me!! 
‘but my house is so small’ – what? a huge 4 storey mansion you call it small? oh! you are comparing it with ‘others who are doing it’. what??? others had built/going to build mansions bigger than yours?
‘everyone’s doing it’ – don’t tell me later on we’ll get to read about more councillors building mansions without approval (they being exposed)?
‘everyones doing it’ – don’t tell me, you mean to say others break the law, so why can’t you do it too??
speaking of law, isn’t it that if a building is illegally constructed, it will be demolished? look at the many indian temples that the councillors had so high-handedly pulled down, because they said the temples were build without approval. then why shouldn’t zakaria and mazylnoor’s mansion be pulled down too, as suggested by the klang consumers association, and i’m sure many like-minded public too. oh no, i almost forgot the phrase ‘double standard’. ok i understand now. as i said, bolehland has two sets of laws.
do you know what our PM had to say on this matter when he found our about zakaria? all he said was that what zakaria did was not good in the eyes of the public. can you believe that? 
that’s not all… he said “i leave it to him (khir toyol) to take action and i have nothing else to comment.” hello, mr badawi, are you the PM or not? i thought you said you are in control?
October 23rd, 2006 on 9:11 am
hmmm… being a councillor mustbe really lucrative.
lucia: yeah and not forget above the law. when we want to build, we have to submit plans to the council but when the councillors built, they don’t have to. when others have their buildings illegally constructed, the buildings will be torn down, but when the councillors have thier buildings illegally constructed, they only get a fine, not thier buildings torn down. see, they are above the law.
October 23rd, 2006 on 11:32 am
lucrative job.. are they hiring more councillors? where do I apply?
lucia: go and see the toyol guy.
October 23rd, 2006 on 12:41 pm
You didn’t put the pictures of the AP Kings…
I will be more interesting, Lucia.
lucia: huh? AP kings? but this post has nothing to do with AP!! whatever for??
October 23rd, 2006 on 12:43 pm
Our current malay *deleted by blog owner* generation is racist now because they desperately want to hang on to privileges which I frankly believe it slowly causing the malay race to rot away and become a pathetic race on crutches dependent.
rest of long comments also deleted.
), thus it is better for you to restrain yourself and criticise in a nicer way.
lucia: dear bad man, i’m afraid i have to delete off the rest of your comments as you were using some pretty harsh words to describe the malays. not all malays are like that and even if you are letting steam off at those malays who are, as you felt they are, it’s not so nice to use such unkind harsh words. hope you understand. this blog is a public blog and lots of people will be reading it (though not that many since my blog is a low-traffic blog!
October 23rd, 2006 on 1:10 pm
Goes to show that the stale public relation exercise of declaring instituted by Madey is a farce. Without Local Elections, the gravy train enabling becomes just the hidden perks too tempting not to grab.
Even smaller timers working for the council in a small town may be able to secure the option to purchase, at preferential rates, the gomen quarters(kinda old but situated on choice land) they have been staying in all the while upon retirement. Who would’ve noticed and who cares?
lucia: the cry for local elections had been going on for so long and yet….Â
October 23rd, 2006 on 3:48 pm
it’s not just him who is corrupt.
it’s like as if in klang, you can get away with building a house without having that big signboard which will tell you who owns the building, the approval reference number etc.
either the kichi-mayo don’t care, or their bosses keep suppresing their compounds.
lucia: yes that – building signboard is another matter apart from the building plans.
i suppose it is like it takes both hands to clap (or in this case more than both hands). i scratch your back, you scratch my back kind of thing.Â
October 24th, 2006 on 4:20 pm
Makes you wonder when seeing such a palatial mansion rising among humble and poor rusted corrugated roofed wooden kampung houses when our councelors are helping their brethrens and the state besides enriching themselves. Come to think of it it seems suddenly so many ‘incidents’ is happening to the MPK that you wonder if they should just sack the entire Klang council and rehire fresh people to helm the district.
lucia: yeah, ideally that would be a good idea but you know lah this selangor MB will say “semuanya ok!” so why need to sack all of them?
October 24th, 2006 on 4:35 pm
Ah Pek, surely you jest. Being councillors carry a lot of clout too. Ask Lucia how many residential properties along Gurney Drive got converted to Bak Kut Teh restaurant during the last 2 decades and more? They (even in the past)can even readily convert any residence into a (noisy second rate night)bar. Yep along any row of old residentail homes – no problem. Tell us that no kickbacks are involved!
lucia: ah you don’t understand ahpek’s mind, i see.
i understand what ahpek meant but now i don’t understand what you mean by ‘surely you jest’Â followed by ‘being councillors carry a lot of clout too’.Â
October 25th, 2006 on 11:17 pm
I’ll send you a collection (in a power point) of Penang politicians’ `palaces’ -be prepared for the shocker ! It’s 6 Mb -so I’m still trying to work out a way to do it smoothly. Failing which I may upload it to a web site for download.
lucia: nah, it won’t shock me. i expected them to own palaces. ok i’m waiting for the powerpoint file.
btw did anyone remember it was mentioned in jeff’s blog that the ex health minister, chua chui meng had a double storey palace, which even have a lift!Â
October 25th, 2006 on 11:47 pm
Ong, this should solve it easily :
http://www.mytempdir.com/
6Mbyte is nothing – 50 is the limit there.
Even normally, Powerpoint files are extremely large for it’s content. Must often zip it usually.
October 27th, 2006 on 1:24 am
So, you wanna know what a guy from Klang has to say about this?
I’m not the least surprised, given the number of harebrained hijinks the MPK has managed to pull off while I was staying there prior to me moving to Wisconsin, US and last year… to Penang. Klang’s Municipal Council is one of the richest in the nation, and in the name of “Mencantikkan Bandaraya”, every fucking year we’ll have the decorative plants at the roundabouts and avenues torn up and replanted with non-native decorative plants. As a kid, I was always puzzled by this yearly ritual until I was old enough for my parents to explain the Malaysian concept of how ‘kontraktor kena makan jugak’. The old bridge over the sewage-polluted Klang river was renovated into a food court and market at a cost of several million. Despite the average Malaysian’s high tolerance for dining in unclean premises, nobody wanted to eat ‘nasi lemak’ or ‘wan tan mee’ with the wonderful stench of trash and sewerage wafting from the river below. So now the stalls sit unoccupied. In fact, I was hard pressed to find any stall there that would be occupied for at least 3 months…
Did I mention the horses (Andrew Sia wrote a wonderful column in The Star about this)? We spent a fat load of cash to import several of the equine species to this tropical city with the intention of “fighting crime”. Yep, you read that; fighting crime. With mounted police officers. I still have a hard time picturing a Klang PDRM officer on horseback chasing a snatch thief down Little India without me breaking into laughter and having people around stare at me as if I was a madman, before they walk away quickly and look back to ensure I ain’t following them with a Jack Torrance smile on my face. None of these horses were ever used for their intended purpose. And true to the average Malaysian Council mentality of “millions for construction, zilch for maintanence”, several of the beasts died due to poor care.
Like many places in Klang, the council building itself has been decorated gaudily with fairy lights. I remembered driving past with my friend and his university-mate from Britain at night, and the Britty ACTUALLY mistook the building for a casino or some nightspot.
Meanwhile, Klang is in a low lying area and many parts of the city are reclaimed from swampland. Somehow, the annual budget forgot to include a raise to mitigate the flooding problem. Did I mention the high crime rate? Screw that, we need more money to decorate the roundabout again and build that multimillion executive club on the hill, rakyat be damned.
So, why should Mr. Zakaria’s new McMansion be of any surprise to us Klang-ites?
lucia: thanks for the interesting view from a fellow klang-ite. the penang council is also somewhat like the klang council where ‘mencantikkan bandar’ is concerned.Â