Lo (seated second left) and MPP deputy chairman Dr Zaiedi Suhaili show the five-star rating award for the council’s website. MPP secretary Andrew Joris is seated left.
KUCHING: The two-year term of all 32 councillors in Padawan Municipal Council (MPP), which will expire this Dec 31, will be extended by another six months.
MPP chairman Lo Khere Chiang, who announced this yesterday, did not discount the possibility that the next state election had something to do with the extension of services of the councillors.
He said MPP was recently informed on the extension by the Local Government and Community Development Ministry’s permanent secretary Datu Dr Pengguang Manggil, following a cabinet meeting.
“The extension of services will be effective January 2016 until June. Although this matter was informed to us by the ministry’s permanent secretary, we will wait for official confirmation from the state government,” he told reporters after chairing the MPP full council meeting yesterday.
He said although the councillors were from different Barisan Nasional (BN) components, they worked well together as a team and this contributed to greater efficiency and performance from MPP.
He pointed to the fact that MPP had spent almost all of the RM21million allocated to it, comprising RM13 million from Malaysian Roads Records Information System (Maris) for maintenance of roads; and RM6 million and RM2 million from the federal government and state government, respectively, for various purposes.
He added the council also spent RM1 million from MPP Reserve Fund on street lighting works in areas under its jurisdiction.
“The allocations were distributed evenly in all areas under MPP’s jurisdiction. All 32 councillors work well together; there is no quarrel because I have been very fair.
“But there are some voices in MPP areas including Matang zone who say they are neglected. They have to understand that with MPP covering 1,400 square kilometres — a big area half the size of Singapore, — even the RM20 million allocation is not enough (to provide the best to their expectations). Therefore, I hope the elected representative in those areas would look after the area better,” he said.
Despite such shortcoming, he said he was pleased to announce MPP’s website had been awarded a five-star rating in an assessment of the Malaysian Government Portals and Websites Assessment (MGPWA) by Multimedia Development Corporation (MDEC).
He said this feat was the first achieved by MPP, after a four-star rating last year and three-star rating the previous year, adding he was also proud to inform that MPP was one of the 30 agencies in Sarawak which received the five-star rating this year.
On another matter, he announced MPP and Life Saving Training Centre will jointly hold Flood and Water Safety Awareness Course in view of the rainy season.
The course, to take place at MPP conference room in Kota Padawan, will be held on Dec 9 and 10. Entrance is free and more information on registration can be obtained by calling organising chairman Lucas Lim at 019-8787778.
“In MPP, we have our own Emergency Response Team comprising our own staff. We also plan to use this course as further training for them,” he said.