Allow public access to minutes, MBPJ urged

Monday February 1, 2010

Allow public access to minutes, MBPJ urged

By TAN KARR WEI (The Star)

karrwei@thestar.com

THE Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) can declassify the minutes of its full board meetings.

During the council’s full board meeting on Friday, Kampung Tunku assemblyman Lau Weng San said it was time for the council to make the minutes open to public scrutiny, in line with the Selangor state government’s policy to promote freedom of information.

“The Kuala Langat District Council has taken the word Sulit (confidential) out of its minutes and even distributes the document to reporters during its full board meeting,” Lau said.

He said there were provisions in the Local Government Act to allow minutes of meetings to be scrutinised by any councillor, ratepayer, state officer or federal officer unless a local council decided otherwise.

Councillor Derek Fernandez said the council’s full board minutes had always been available for inspection and he agreed with Lau’s call to remove the word Sulit from the minutes.

However, the sub-committee meetings had been classified under the Official Secrets Act under the previous administration and the full board would have to call for the minutes to be declassified.

Once approved, the officer with the power to declassify the documents can then do so.

Lau said he had suggested this to the mentri besar, who had agreed to the proposal in principle.

Councillor Selvarajan Rathinam raised the issue of billboards springing up at several locations in the city even though the billboard site inspection committee had not approved the sites.

“There is even one billboard in Taman Mayang that was put up although we have not even visited the site,” he said.

Petaling Jaya mayor Datuk Mohamad Roslan Sakiman called for action to be taken against those who put up billboards without permission while councillor Tiew Way Keng said the errant operators should also be blacklisted.

She also wanted the council to make it mandatory for developers to put in place the infrastructure for the area concerned before they were allowed to start on their development.

“The developer will be required to submit infrastructure plans when they apply for a development order,” said Tiew.

During the press conference held after the meeting, Mohamad Roslan said the demolition of the former Jaya Supermarket had started.

“All the compounds have been settled and we have lifted the stop-work order,” he said.