(Petaling Jaya, Tuesday): The Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Fauzi Abdul Rahman told the Dewan Negara yesterday that all 585 proposals of the National Economic Action Council (NEAC) to revive the economy have or are being implemented by the various Ministries and agencies.
He said that so far none had refused to implement the measures.
During the July meeting of Parliament, I had specifically queried the Ministry of Housing and Local Government on whether his Ministry would take the lead to contact all State Governments and local authorities to implement the NEAC recommendation to relieve the burden of sewerage costs of all ratepayers. The answer given by the Deputy Housing and Local Government Minister at the time was that his Ministry had to study the matter first.
What is the result of this Ministry study? Four months have since passed and Malaysian ratepayers are entitled to know whether all the local authorities have decided to implement the NEAC recommendation to give a rebate on sewerage costs to ratepayers from the assessment rates as the Indah Water Konsortium (IWK) had taken over the services.
The NEAC made three recommendations in its National Economic Recovery
Plan (NERP) in connection with the nation-wide complaints by the people
about the IWK sewerage services and charges, and one of its recommendations
echoed the complaint of all ratepayers that "Customers do not want
to pay twice for the same service" and that "Local authorities need to
give a rebate on sewerage costs to consumers from assessment rates once
IWK takes over the services".
In line with the NEAC’s NERP recommendation, DAP calls on all state
governments to suspend all IWK sewerage charges until the local authorities
have implemented the NEAC recommendation to give a rebate to consumers
from assessment rates, which should have full retrospective effect.
(15/12/98)