In my passion as a freelance journalist, there was no specific target that I was going after. In my weekends, I would drive around the neighbourhood to look for stories, and follow up with the respective organisation or government department to obtain an official response.
The then Majlis Daerah Gombak (now Selayang Municipal Council) was not spared of my brickbats, when I highlighted a complaint by irate residents in Desa Jaya, who said they had to live with a strong stench coming from a nearby wet market. When I checked out the area, I found that the drains beside the wet market had clogged up and the petty trader selling chicken were slaughtering their fowls beside the drain. They had conveniently thrown the feathers into the drain. As if to make matters worse, the drain was only one foot deep. Whenever it rained, water would overflow to the neighbourhood.
At that juncture, I was trying to build bridges with people in the government departments. I had visited the Gombak Local Council and wanted to befriend its public relations officer. It was simply for the convenience of getting official statements for all my articles. However, the attempt to build bridges had turned out to be most frustrating. One week after my article appeared in The Malay Mail, I contacted the public relations officer. In one statement, he said: “The problem is already solved. The contractor has already started work there to deepen the drains.” Dissatisfied with the answer, I went to check out the status – and found that nothing had improved!
I immediately called the officer concerned, but numerous phone calls to the local council’s office were answered by a voice message, “Sorry, we are all busy. There is no one to pick up your call right now. Please hold on, and we will transfer you to someone who can respond to your complaint immediately.” This repeated many times, before finally it ended with the call being disconnected. In my anger, I recall writing to the then Minister of Housing and Local Government, Ting Chew Pei, who in my opinion was not effective in handling complaints. Ten complaints raised to his office, all were not solved.
With my access now to The Malay Mail, I immediately wrote another story recounting how the Public Relations Officer of the then Gombak Local Council had claimed that work had begun. When contacted, he refused to come to the ground to check out the status. I quoted him, and showed the true status of the drains. Within less than one month later, the contractor started work on the drain next to the wet market.
There was another occasion when some contractors had burnt the leftovers from land clearing work at the Kepong Forest Reserve Institute (FRIM). On my way back, I could see clouds of smoke. I took pictures of it, and went to investigate the source of the smoke. Finally, it became obvious to me that someone had set fire to some wood in FRIM. I made attempts to capture as many pictures as possible, and immediately after dinner, I drove my way back to The Malay Mail office to submit the story about FRIM setting fire to the leftovers after clearing the land.
The next day, when the article was published, one of its directors received numerous phone calls from his counterparts asking why FRIM was not practising what it was preaching all along. Back then, people were told not to set fire to the leftovers in a bid to reduce air pollution.
Boon Siew, the editor, received a phone call from the director himself, accusing The Malay Mail reporter for publishing false stories. He had claimed that the picture of the cloud of smoke was nothing but some clouds hovering over the forest reserve. In short, he was demanding a public apology. Boon Siew called me to clarify, and in the same evening, I had to turn up at The Malay Mail office to show him other evidence that I had collected. I promised him that I would investigate the place again the next day, being a Saturday morning.
When I went back to FRIM to investigate, I had my camera clicking away to collect evidence of charred tree trunks that were abandoned on its ground after land clearing. With the evidence in hand, I went to see the director personally to ask for some clarification. He knew all along that he could not deny the evidence that I had collected, so I offered him a solution. It wasn’t my intention to embarrass him or FRIM, but it was a personal crusade against air polluters. I told him that it would be better for him to apologise to the public than for him to keep denying the truth.
The next day, it was frontpaged in The Sunday Mail, “FRIM said Sorry.” The illegal burning had apparently been carried out by the land clearing contractor without his knowledge. In his bid to fight air pollution, he was quoted saying that the culprit would be taken to task for burning the leftovers on what was FRIM’s land. To me, the message was clear. There is a price to pay for polluting the air, whether you are the authority or just a member of the public.
A third incident involved Tenaga Nasional. For over 20 years, my family and I had lived in Taman Kepong. I remember the streetlight in front of our house was removed after it had collapsed. It was gone forever. Although I had written several letters to the Kuala Lumpur City Hall, there were no actions to replace the missing streetlights. When I checked out the whole area, I found that all four streets near to my family home had not been lighted for more than two decades.
An attempt was made to write the story, which appeared as a full-page article in The Malay Mail. By about eleven o’clock in the morning when the article appeared, several truckloads of TNB employees came and immediately swung into action. They worked very hard from morning until past midnight. By the time I came back, they were still working. I couldn’t believe that was the power of the press. The 26 soldiers that I had sent out marching against the bureaucracy of the government had finally achieved another victory!
By about 12 midnight, all the lamp posts were lighted up. I immediately rallied some neighbours who agreed to appear with their thumbs up to TNB. A follow-up story appeared two days later: “You light up my life!” To express my deeply felt appreciation to the TNB staff, I took them to the nearest mamak stall for supper. They left the place, feeling they have achieved something for the people living in Taman Kepong. Until today, I do not know what had transpired that caused TNB workers to immediately swing into action the same day the article appeared.
It was either their chief executive officer going on a rage, or City Hall had approved the budget but the work had not started. It didn’t matter to me anymore to check the real reasons as long as residents now had their streets lighted up. We had lived in darkness for over 20 years.
The same feat was carried out in areas within Jinjang North, where villagers had complained that there were no streetlights. I also began to concentrate on highlighting the lack of such facilities. Gradually, streetlights were changed from white fluorescent bulbs to tungsten light bulbs.
Another incident worth mentioning was with a road linking Sri Damansara and Wangsa Permai. It was completed by a particular developer but failed to be handed over to the then Petaling Jaya Municipal Council (MPPJ). The whole stretch of road was without streetlights. It was dangerous as residents would often have to walk the whole stretch to their homes in either Wangsa Permai or Desa Aman Puri. When I moved into Wangsa Permai, this was one of the things that I highlighted as a story. I contacted the local state assemblyman, the late Datuk Pius Martin, who immediately visited the site with his wife. I found the late Datuk Pius to be a hardworking and sincere man. He immediately raised the matter to the council. On another occasion, I happened to visit MPPJ to settle a carpark compound, and I went to see the then President of the Council. He immediately explained to me the status with the road, that it had been built without the Council’s approval. “Let me see if I can talk to the developer, otherwise, I would instruct my men to close the access road!” he said. For me, that would mean another story, while for the developer, it would mean getting into hot soup with the local authority. Streetlights along the road were finally erected, much to the delight of residents, to which I had attributed to the late Datuk Pius Martin, a former Gerakan State Assemblyman!
During former prime minister, Dr Mahathir’s time, it had become apparent to me that any complaints appearing in the newspapers were going to be attended to. He had encouraged the public to carry a camera and take pictures of any complaints. In a way, his method was very effective in ensuring that complaints were given the due attention. If the stories are not carried by the papers, the complaints can be lodged all the way to the cabinet minister, and nothing would be done to solve the problem. One particular article which I wrote had highlighted about trees being cut and the trunks being abandoned for several weeks around the township. For lack of space, The Malay Mail only published two photographs. A few days later, I went to check out the status, and true enough the two tree trunks were removed, while the others, including two trunks barely five meters away, were still left abandoned by the roadside. City Hall employees did not remove the tree trunks until two weeks’ later!
Although most of the articles concentrated around Kepong, it was merely out of convenience that I had written about complaints raised by residents in my neighbourhood. I was also covering stories as far as Seremban, where I visited my relatives occasionally. There was one time when I was told about a developer’s shoddy work in Seremban. Right in front of his house, there was a fire hydrant which had been built. Despite numerous complaints to the local authority and the developer, nothing was done to solve the complainant’s woes. After an article appeared in The Malay Mail, the local authority finally took actions to have the fire hydrant removed; otherwise, my friend would have to forget about driving his car into the porch. This story seems unbelievable, but nothing is a surprise, and it was this kind of juicy story that The Malay Mail was happy to highlight – and each time the story hits the street, I laugh my way to the bank. In retrospect, it wasn’t the money that I was being paid, but the satisfaction of seeing a smile on the faces of my fellow countrymen.
Talking about solving complaints, I had several encounters with local politicians. Having lived in Kepong all my life, and Kepong had been the stronghold of the Democratic Action Party’s candidate, Dr Tan Seng Giaw, I was eager not only to contact him on residents’ complaints, but also other Members of Parliament like the then Members of Parliament of Segambut, Dr Tan Kee Kwong and Selayang MP, Dato’ Chan Kong Choy. Being apolitical even to this day, I only called them to obtain an official response which I would quote in my articles.
There was once I remember calling Dato’ Chan about the complaint raised by a resident in Desa Jaya. The complainant had said that the river had eroded into the embankment behind his house. He was concerned that, if left unattended, part of his house would sink in. Now, this was not a new complaint. I had earlier highlighted that the river was occasionally polluted with dyestuff with many colours, and in my article, I had mentioned that the local council should immediately look into the erosion. Work had begun a year ago, but abandoned for some unknown reasons. I immediately contacted the Member of Parliament on his mobile phone. To my surprise, he replied: “Please ask the resident to write a letter to the municipal council.”
Disappointed with his reply, I immediately retorted: “Dato’, if I were to write the way you had said it, you would have a lot of explanation to do. What’s the use of the Member of Parliament if the resident himself can write their letters of complaint to the local council? And, after the letter is written, would the local council even respond or carry out the remedial work?” I pressed on, before the Member of Parliament of Selayang finally said he would send his assistant to look into the complaint. My reply to him: “That’s what I would like to hear. At least the complainant has someone whom he could turn to.”
I had other encounters with the Member of Parliament of Kepong, Dr Tan Seng Giaw. Although he was the Opposition Member of Parliament, Dr Tan’s response had been more encouraging. When I wrote about the neglected open field in Jinjang Utara, he immediately gave me the impression that he had been knocking on the door of City Hall for a budget to improve the field. He took the trouble to fax me his written response, albeit handwritten, stating that a certain budget had been allocated, but work had not started. After the article appeared in The Malay Mail, the City Hall swung into action and had the basketball court fixed and the children’s playground and football field renovated. Sadly, the people of Jinjang had lost part of their only open field which has been used for carparks and open meetings.
In less than a week after the work had completed, another gentleman who claimed to have solved the woes faced by residents appeared in another English daily, claiming that he had managed to get City Hall to improve on the open field. When I read the article, I told my friends that I almost felt like vomiting. Apparently, this gentleman was eyeing on the Kepong constituency, and having failed to garner support from within his own party, he quitted from all positions, threatening to go to the polls as an independent candidate.
In writing these paragraphs, I am in no way showing partisanship, but comparing two constituencies – one held by the MCA and the other by the opposition party, DAP. Many people in the past, including fellow pressmen, had always jeered at the opposition party saying, “That’s why Kepong is being neglected.” My answer is very straight to the point. I had retorted to these friends: “Look at Selayang! Numerous complaints had piled up, and despite the issues being raised with the Member of Parliament, Dato’ Chan, things were just as bad!” The issue has nothing to do with the Member of Parliament, but the local authority and its lackasaidal attitude towards complaints raised by residents.” To me, it was time for the local authority to improve itself, because the assessments paid to the local council or City Hall does not go to the local Member of Parliament. While the people’s representative should concentrate on the bigger issues in parliament, the local councils and City Hall had better to pull up their socks. Its officials are accountable to the Government of the day for its delivery of services as well as the tax payers who pay their salaries.
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