| Any local authority exists to protect and preserve the public interest of the area under its jurisdiction.
The Local Government Act amply empowers the head of the council, to protect and preserve this public interest for the benefit of the people’s welfare.
How is it that, in selected cases, the local authority ends up closing one eye conveniently and serving the private, not the public interest?
How can there be blatant rape of our green lung of 30 years in my Kampung Tunku area, all in the name of development? What and how does the predefined public interest in these public spaces get hijacked for private and profit-motivated purposes? The most recent case reported about the community hall in SS15 in Subang Jaya being acquired to make way for a private and profit motivated development project is my specific concern. | K J John served in public service for 30 years and took optional retirement to work in his own consulting group. He hopes to see transparent and open, new governance practiced in Malaysia some day. | 
Let me borrow the Jerry Harvey thesis that such activities can only happen when there is collusion and connivance by the very officers who are responsible to prevent the crime. Harvey calls it the ‘Trip to Abilene’.
Wikipedia defines the Abilene paradox as: “A paradox in which a group of people collectively decide on a course of action that is counter to the preferences of any of the individuals in the group. It involves a common breakdown of group communication in which each member mistakenly believes that their own preferences are counter to the group's and do not raise objections.”
H ow else can local councillors suddenly become blinded by the private and vested interests of those who want to steal the land for reasons of profit? How else can the local authority even propose the ‘theft’ of public land for private interests?
I understand that there were alternative proposals for public use of this site, but that these were rejected in favour of the private party’s interests. Why? I further understand that councillors were even offered excellent ‘inducements’ to favour the private proposals, more than three years ago.
Is this not corruption? More so, is this not visible corruption?
Wikipedia, defines corruption “as a general concept describing any organised, interdependent system in which part of the system is either not performing duties it was originally intended to, or performing them in an improper way, to the detriment of the system's original purpose”.
Pattern of theft
How then a local authority and its councillors support, collude and approve the public acquisition of public land for private purposes?
The pattern of such theft is always identical. First the developer hands over land surrendered as part and parcel of the development plan to be gazetted for a specified public or community purpose.
I nevitably, the local authority forgets to gazette the land. Over time, the developers move on, the house buyers move in, and a community develops their ordinary life. In many cases this land is never properly maintained or developed or serves as storage ground for the developer’s equipment.
Very often, residents have no specific knowledge that this is community land so, over time, ‘land vultures’ move in to acquire the site with help from ex-staff of the local council who have retired and who have entered the ‘connect and collect’ business. Even the need for bumiputera participation is factored in.
Now all they need is some agreeable councillors and serving staff to create a storyline for approval. Concurrently, they find a patron at the state level - in the case of Selangor, within the economic action council. Once the relevant approvals are received, many people become richer and happier.
In the case of a development project in SS15, Subang Jaya, approval was given for a 25-storey building of service apartments and five levels for a car-park. The project was approved as a ‘joint venture’ between the local council and a private developer. The Sun columnist R Nadeswaran has asked pertinent questions: “Is the council in the construction business? Does it have the expertise? Does it have the money?”
L et me add my questions: Under what authority can and should a public agency go into a joint-venture project with a private developer? Under what rules and guidelines can such authority make a decision to go into business in the first place? Is it the business of a local authority to develop service apartments; even its officers?
In short, does the Local Government Act empower a council to undertake business of any kind? Is it not merely responsible for good maintenance and governance? Why is the ministry of housing and local government not asking similar questions?
Based on reports in The Sun, it is now obvious that the ministry’s secretary-general, the chief secretary to the government and the cabinet secretary are all aware of this situation. Are they going to take any action to protect the public interest?
Slippery slope
To me, the whole issue is related to the deterioration of rule of law. If the Blind Lady of Justice is really not blind any more, why should even the third-tier of governance be concerned with the rule of law? And we wonder why corruption and bribery are at its peak currently!
It appears that almost anyone in public service has a price. But from my experience of more than 30 years, this is not true. Many civil servants are honest and straight-forward officials who have no pecuniary interests, even if most fear to stand up against politically motivated bosses and politicians.
T o my mind, such systemic failures started about 15 years ago when Daim Zainuddin (photo) transferred the first PTD officer, within 24 hours, out of his ministry of finance for disobeying a clearly wrongful instruction. We have since been on a slippery slope, compounded by a culture of fear. Most PTD officers, especially those who have received the ‘broom’ award, are too ashamed to speak up for truth.
Perviously, many of these expedient projects were directly related to interests related to the New Economic Policy (NEP) but, over the last 15 years or so, it has translated into particular interests of individuals wanting to get rich under the NEP banner.
Unless such theft of public land is not stopped under the rule of law, our nation could one day be up for sale because some individual interests can be served. By keeping quiet, we too are participating and colluding in this, if you follow Harvey’s paradox.
The tip of the iceberg is already visible, but the captains our Titanic believe that their leadership and systemic structure are invincible. They need to be accountable and responsible for three elements of the bottom-line - financial, social and good governance.
All three define the public interest and the common good. |
