KUCHING: Padawan Municipal Council (PMC) should come up with RM800,000 to build a hawker centre in Kampung Haji Baki here, says Democratic Action Party (DAP) Batu Kitang chairman Abdul Aziz Isa.
In a press statement in response to a newspaper report on May 19, where PMC chairman Lo Khere Chiang had called Aziz out for asking him (Lo) to cancel the hall and hawker centre in Kpg Haji Baki, Aziz retorted that those claims were untrue.
“If he stands by his words, I demand him to disclose to the public in which part of my official statement did I ask him, ‘why did he not cancel the two proposed projects?’.
“I can recall from my official statement dated May 4, that I advised him to allocate some funds through the council in providing a new hawker centre, as it falls under the local council’s jurisdiction,” Aziz said in the press statement received here yesterday.
Aziz added that he had merely asked Lo why, as PMC chairman, had he not allocated some funds to build facilities for the Kpg Haji Baki hawker centre using ratepayers’ money collected through annual assessment rates.
“First, I asked if it was Najib who pledged RM1 million for the building of the Kpg Haji Baki new multipurpose hall in 2016. Why didn’t the then Barisan Nasional regime fulfill the promise?
“Secondly, since the promise was made in 2016, why hadn’t Lo demand Najib to expedite the two projects? There was a gap of two years (until May 2018) to fulfill the promises,” Aziz said.
Aziz also pointed out that Malaysia had three levels of government, namely, federal government, state government and local government.
“In Sabah and Sarawak, the local councils are administered under the Local Government Ordinance 1961 and Local Authorities Ordinance 1996 respectively. In addition, Article 95A of the Federal Constitution gives power for the federal government to create the National Council for Local Government, which consists of a minister as the chairman.
“However, it should be noted that there are exceptions for Sabah and Sarawak under Article 95D of the Federal Constitution, which states that the Parliament is banned from creating laws pertaining to land and local government for the two states,” Aziz said, adding that this gave Article 95E of the Federal Constitution to exclude the two states from following laws formulated by the National Council for Local Government.
Aziz thus said Lo should not expect the federal government to bear the cost of building the hawker centre as it fell under PMC jurisdiction.
“Instead, he should request for financial assistance from the state government since the council was created by the state government under the Local Authorities Ordinance 1996,” Aziz concluded.