Selangor Local Government Needs A Major Overhaul Befitting A Developed State

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DESPITE increases in rates last year and the recent 2026 budgetary allocations, the local government in Selangor is in a woeful state and unable to match the needs and expectations of residents and industries.
The main complaints centre on the insanitary conditions in the state and poor upkeep of public spaces and infrastructure such as roads and drains which have only worsened with the unending urban sprawl.
The main blame for the mess is the dual system whereby KDEB Waste Management is entrusted with the collection of domestic and bulk rubbish whereas the upkeep of parking areas, night and wet markets, food courts and children’s playgrounds is left to the local authorities who appoint their own contractors.
Streetlight contractors do not act on their own initiative but rely on public complaints to do their job. Littering and dumping in public spaces have become major problems due to the uncivic attitude of locals and foreign workers.
Foreign worker settlements and colonies are a big mess with dirty and unkempt conditions. The premier local authorties, despite getting higher revenue from rates and getting larger allocations from the government, have nothing exemplary to show the ratepayers.
Local councillors hardly make any suggestions for improvement or changes during meetings and meekly prefer the status quo.
The local authorities hardly monitor the work of the municipal contractors or their workers for inexplicable reasons.The slipshod nature of their work leaves a lot to be desired. The local authorities do not competently choose their contactors. The contractors are well paid. This is the weakest link in the municipal services rendered.
There are hardly any strict checks or monitoring by the local authority officials and despite complaints through SISPAA, telephone calls, emails and other means the situation does not improve for the long term.
The situation is really bad in the urban and suburban areas, which have larger populations and industries. The situation really became bad after the 1990s with the mushrooming of residential and commercial areas, SME zones and also areas with larger industries.
Industrial estates are equally worse off due to poor upkeep even though industries pay hefty rates annually. It is good to note that the Selangor government has budgeted for a large- scale road re-surfacing programme state-wide.
Large scale development of residential, industrial and commercial development make it harder for proper and effective local government administration. Even if rates are hiked and more money provided by the government the situation will continue to deteriorate, and any improvements have a short term effect only.
One needs to make complaints regularly to see some basic improvements. Continuous competent maintenance and monitoring are lacking. Recycling efforts need to be boosted to cope with the state’s massive volume of waste.
Both the recycling firms and Residents’ Associations can be provided some incentives to do this task.
Even KDEB, a Selangor state subsidiary, has a lot of shortcomings as it too has contracted out the domestic garbage collection services to private contractors.
Ratepayers now have to be saddled with regular excuses such as compactor truck break-downs, spilling of leachate on residential roads, shortage of workers and drivers.
KDEB supervisors hardly do any daily supervision of the clean-up by garbage and Roll-On Roll-Off (better known as “roro”) dumpster trucks. During any immigration ‘operasi’ most of the workers abscond and are no where to be seen. This affects the essential municipal services the most. Can’t the KDEB and local authorities get proper work permits for these workers?
There needs to be a major overhaul of municipal and local government services to ensure that roads and drains, residential, commercial and industrial areas are kept tidy befitting a developed first world state.
Even Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) and TM are taking advantage of this local government mess by not caring for their assets and infrastructure as one can see rows of faulty streetlights as well as dangerously tilting poles and heavy cables belonging to TM.
Both the Selangor local government exco and the Ministry of Housing and Local government (KPKT) need to make surprise checks on the municipal conditions as local government receives large allocations from both the state and federal governments. 
V. Thomas is a Focus Malaysia viewer.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT. 
- Focus Malaysia.

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