On The Prospective Enforcement of The Solid Waste & Public Cleasing Management Act 2007(672) In
In 2007, Parliament made amendments to the Local Government Act, the Town & Country Planning Act as well as the Street, Drainage & Building Act, stripping off the powers and functions of Local Councils (PBT) in Public Cleansing and other essential sanitary services. This was to make way for the Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Management Act 2007 (The Act), which was then pushed through Parliament, thereby robbing the PBT of their constitutional duty, placing it in the inside pockets of Federal Government and their corresponding agencies and crony corporations.
The Act is another piece of legislation designed to serve BN’s plan to centralize power by privatization of Solid Waste Management and Public Cleaning (SW & PC), which was rejected by Selangor, Kelantan, Penang as well as Perak when it was first gazetted. Enforcement of the Act for these states shelved, at least at that time, due to disagreeable terms between the concessionaire and the respective State governments.
A few days ago, all Perakian elected representatives , Perakian local councillors, and senior local council personnel were invited by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (KPKT), to a briefing on the Act held at Putrajaya. The briefing signals that conversations between KPKT and the Perak BN Government on the enforcement of the Act have been revived. Needless to say, an event of such scale and expenditure, can only spell that enforcement of the Act in Perak is very much so, back on the table.
Centralisation of power
Japan and Korea though at different rates, have openly been championing decentralisation reforms as a primary governmental agenda for the past decade and a half. Even previously authoritarian and highly centralised nations like China and Indonesia have in recent years been rampantly reforming their administrative structures through decentralising policy and decision making.
When the BN government speaks of the ‘look east’ approach by emulating our successful Asian neighbours, the former have somehow selectively missed the latter’s emphasis of decentralization of government and governance. Worst still, they have been systematically and strategically curtailing the role and powers of Local and State government, effectively hijacking those powers and placing them under the federal government, turning us more and more in a top-down society.
Senior civil servants being hired and/or fired by federal authority; a Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) that is ballooning in size and expenditure at a record breaking rate; a police force that is controlled by the federal government; a fire service which used to be under the purview of local government now under federal control; energy and power being centrally managed through national Super-GLCs; a near-half-century and ongoing suspension of the third vote with councilors appointed by the State; and now the federalization of SW & PC. The list could goes on and on, to show that our national trajectory is one that is heading towards an autocratic dictatorship by a very select few; ultimately we’re further and further away from Democracy.
Whilst governments the world over are decentralizing power more efficient, effective and empathetic services to people, the BN government’s grotesque hunger for power is scheming and plotting for the very opposite. The prospect of the Act’s enforcement coming back into play in Perak is yet another piece of supporting evidence for this.
The practical effects of the Act
The Act provides the power for the Federal Government to make agreements with any organisation to carry out SWM & PC which includes solid waste services, solid waste management facilities and public cleansing services. (public cleansing includes public roads, public places, toilets, public sewer and public markets and hawker centres except for those that are privately maintained, illegally disposed solid waste, beach cleaning, grass cutting at the edge of public roads, cutting grass in public places and removal of carcasses)
Under the proposed system, collection, transportation solid waste and public cleansing will be carried out by E-Idaman (the chosen Concessionaire for Perlis, Kedah, Penang and Perak) or their chosen contractors. Transfer centers, treatment facilities and solid waste disposal, collection and transportation of construction materials and industrial waste are open to other interested parties or the concessionaire, but it is only natural that the terms are heavily dictated by, and in favour of E-idaman.
Setting aside whether or not E-idaman qualifies as a crony to the ruling regime, concessionaires are private sector operators whose raison d’etre is to turn investment into profit. When a government responsibility like SWM & PC is outsourced to a profit driven organization, who needs only to answer to their shareholders and need not pay the slightest attention to the people, it is tantamount to the circumventing the very notion of democracy.
For all the faults of the current system and the far-from-perfect delivery systems of Perakian PBTs, at least Members of Parliament, State Assemblymen, and Councilors still hold some weight in affecting improvements and in calling for immediate action when the situation arises. The Act not only contains no provision for the State as well as PBT to be involved in the Policy and decision making processes of the concessionaire, worst still they are not even empowered to take any action against the concessionaire if its performance is not satisfactory.
Simply speaking, ratepayers’ complaints on blocked drains, uncollected rubbish and dirty pasar now have to go to Putrajaya, and can only be solved by trekking through bureaucratic minefields of federal agencies and a private crony corporation whose rice bowl is unbreakable for its stipulated contractual period of 22 years.
Indah Water Konsortium 2.0
It is understood that under the deal, the PBTs will be paying no more than however much they are currently paying (pre-privatisation) for SWM & PC services to the concessionaire. Anything over and above by ways of expenses, costs and remunerations, the bill will be footed by Federal government. However The Minister of Housing and Local Government once stated that “after the KPI is fulfilled and people feel satisfied with the services, we will start charging”.
When asked whether or not ratepayers’ pockets will be hit, proponents of this privatization plan merely stated that there will be no additional charges to the PBTs, and none for the time being for the end consumer. Even if E-idaman came out-right in making a ‘no extra charge for the ends user’ pledge right now, there is nothing stopping them legally from doing so if they wish to do so some time in the next 22 years.
The legislations pertaining to the imposition of charges, fees and levies; as well as parties liable to the said impositions, clearly allows both the federal government, their appointed agencies, AS WELL AS the concessionaire themselves to slap the ratepayer with a SWM & PC bill every month. To put it simply, we have in front of us a paved way for an ‘Indah Water Konsortium 2.0” crisis.
Solving a manpower crisis by instigating a jobs crisis.
When the SWM & PC Act (2007) is enforced, PBTs are no longer responsible for the management of solid waste and public cleansing. PBT staff currently under the ambit of solid waste management and public cleansing, will be default-ly absorbed by E-Idaman.
According to government sources, one of the purported rationales behind this mass privatization, was to overcome human resource shortages faced by a majority of PBTs. From this,it can be clearly seen that the government have failed in improving working conditions to attract more Malaysians to join the SWM & PC services, nor have they the competency to reduce the demand of SWM & PC services. In the absence of the required ideological will and innovation in governance, the federal and state governments have resorted to outsourcing by privatization.
PBTs are legally obliged to employ 100% Malaysians, the concessionaire and other institutions involved in the implementation of this Act are not bound by this obligation. With this, for waste management in Ipoh alone, around 200 Malaysian council workers’ jobs are at grave risk of being replaced with foreign workers. The number of jobs at risk across all 15 PBTs statewide goes into the thousands.
The legislative implications and options
The original basis of establishing PBTs is to serve the function of handling sewage, solid waste management and public cleansing. In fact, like most local governments around the world, our very own Majlis Bandaraya Ipoh (MBI) started off as a sanitary board nearly two centuries ago, for that very purpose. If and when the State government and PBTs agree to the enforcement of the Act, they will no longer have a role in the management of SW & PC. Put it simply, the PBTs will be reduced to nothing more than a money collecting counter for E-idaman.
There is however, a saving grace for those states who wish not to see this extra nail on the proverbial coffin for local democracy. This is provided by the inherent weakness in BN’s drawing up of legislations but has become a safeguard for the likes of Selangor, Penang Terengganu and Perak thus far. In order for a state to align itself to the arrangements stipulated by the Act, it will need the State’s Legislative Assembly to pass state Laws conferred in the Act.
If the state government decides not to cooperate, or to negotiate, or even to pass state laws supplementary to the Act to ensure certain safeguards not provided under the Act are put in place, the state legislature has all the powers to do so.
The next step
It is quite clear that the State government is requested to get in line with the Act. I hereby represent the entire Opposition block of the Perak State Assembly in requesting the State and Federal government in revealing all regulations accompanying the Act, as it determines how the Act is to be enforced. Perakians cannot possibly make an informed choice as to embrace or oppose this new arrangement if this crucial information is withheld, especially when such alarming issues as I have raised above is already afore us when we’ve only barely just scratched the surface.
Whilst many have doomed this as a foregone conclusion, and no amount of lobbying will sway the resolve of the BN Federal government to whip the State government into line, there is definitely cause to take an optimistic bet. The whispers of disagreement towards the Act are quickly getting louder by the day, even from among the BN DUN backbenchers. It is therefore essential for the Perak State Government to take this agenda to the National Council for Local Government for further negotiation and deliberation to seek the most appropriate solution that will benefit the people of Perak.
For the sake of Perakians, and the dignity of all our local Councils, I urge all Perakian State Assemblypersons, and also Councillors regardless of political affiliations to work hand in hand in resisting this Centralisation by Privatisation agenda by the Federal government.
