Saturday, June 21, 2008

New Petaling Jaya Councillors List Out?

I've received several calls from reporters and friends after reading a leaked list of councillors in The Star Metro yesterday. I couldn't comment much on the list as I wasn't directly involved in the final selection process.

However, my colleague, ADUN for Kampung Tunku has issued a press statement as copied below from his blog, and it's makes for some concerned reading.
A mockery for PR if partisan nominees appointed as councilors under NGO quota

It has been negotiated that there will be an average of 6 non-partisan councillors in each local council in Selangor excluding Orang Besar Kaya Besar Daerah (OKBD). In Selangor, there are altogether nine OKBDs in each local councils except for Petaling Jaya City Hall (MBPJ), Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ) and Ampang Jaya Municipal Council (MPAJ).

In Petaling Jaya City Hall, there will be a total of 24 new councilors of which four of them are from PAS, seven from PKR and six from DAP, with the remaining seven councilorship to be appointed from non-partisan nominees, i.e. NGOs and RAs in Petaling Jaya.

The Star Metro has published a list of councilors for MBPJ today and I was requested to comment on it. For a city with various active NGOs in town, political parties should not hijack councillorship reserved for NGOs and RAs in MBPJ.

Sad to say, from the list of unconfirmed names reported in the Star Metro today, I can notice that there are efforts by certain party to insert party members as councilors in MBPJ under NGO quota as there are only six NGO and RA councilors in the list, namely Richard Yeoh (TI), Anthony Thanasayagan (Coordinator of Malaysians Against Discrimination of the Disabled), Dr Melasutra bt Md Dali (Town Planner), Cynthia Manonmani a/p Michael Gabriel (Suaram), Derek Fernandez (prominent lawyer on local governance) and Paneer Sivam (labourer activitist) with no representatives from residents association.

It is my stand that the seven non-partisan nominees should be purely reserved for non-partisan nominees, i.e. NGOs and RAs in Petaling Jaya. Else it will be a mockery for Pakatan Rakyat.
Will possibly blog more should I obtain more information.

4 comments:

WY said...

why does PKR reminds me of Umno with a lil more brain?

Anonymous said...

Please appoint only those stay in PJ area to be the DBPJ councillors. People not stay in PJ should not be appointed as they will not see longkang in PJ. Then you, MP Pua will have to do as what BN MPs did before.

How can people outside PJ look after PJ welfare? PJ with large Chinese population, but how many Chinese councillors we have?

Anonymous said...

If the name list of city councillors is confirmed, then my questions are:
1. What is the membership of those NGOs?
2. Is the HQ or office of those NGOs situated in PJ?
3. What is the frequency these representatives stay in PJ?
4. DO you know there are many Residents Associations, and Pakatan Rakyat ignored the fact that they really represent the welfare of the residents in PJ?
5. There are at least 2 RA in SS2, why are they not represented?
6. Some NGO has less than 20 member. Can they represent the welfare of PJ residents?
Come on, Pakatan Rakyat don't disapoint us.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous at 8.40pm, I agree with your first paragraph, but your second paragraph comes across as racist. Why the need to care what race the PJ councilperson is?