Monday, August 07, 2006

A feeling of being ignored by the Council

I was in Menara MBPJ, participated in the Budget Dialogue 2007 and 2008m organised by the City Council. Frankly, it was a commendable experience for me as I don't remember of any councils in Selangor or even any councils in my homestate, Perak does this.

Well I submitted a nine-point queries cum proposal to the council. For your information, these are probably the most last-minute kind of skatches that I have ever done, thanks to the last-minute kind of materials given by the Council.

I therefore raised one point in my speech, that I hope the dialogue will be a continuous one, and not a one-off PR exercise just to fulfill the requirement of Local Agenda 21, as most of us who attended the meeting are not adequately supplied with any information for us to provide fruitful inputs to the Council to prepare the Budget. This is why I asked a lot of questions in my submission as I believe the answers to the questions are very important to enlighten us in understanding more about the budget. Moreover, the Council is talking about "Self-sustaining based on a balance budget".

I just wonder how they can appreciate my questions, judging from the eye-contacts I have with the council officer who chair the meeting....she did not jot down what I say (or she is expecting me to write in to her afterwards?). When I was speaking, coincidently, the Mayor was sitting behind, I saw him, and I purposely tried to have eye-contact with him when I talked about billboard, about periodic announcement from his office on the number of billboards taken down every week, he did not seem to be happy with my talks, and he just ignored any eye-contact with me....

Well, these were what I experienced....perhaps the officers are shocked: how come we have one DAP fellow to kacau our show? (I was informed much later that there were attempts from the ground to stop me from talking. Reason being that I am not representing any RA/RT)

Well, I mentioned right from the beginning that I came in my capacity of a resident in SEA Park and a person who works in Paramount Garden. As long as I am a taxpayer to the Council, I think I deserve all the rights to be there. Probably, the problem started when I also mentioned loud and clear that I am also a member of DAP.

However tough it is, I think this is what we should do, we are merely carrying out our responsibilities as a responsible political party.

As a result of the lacks of accountability and transparency, the residents have retaliated. Of course, this is a commendable courageous move. PJ shall take the lead to change, and it's residents are doing a good job.

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