Thesun 2009-07-23 Page12 The Truth Of The Matter

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theSun

INTERVIEWS VIEWS

| THURSDAY JULY 23 2009

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The truth of the matter SELANGOR STATE EXECUTIVE COUNCILLOR RONNIE LIU, THE TARGET OF MANY ACCUSATIONS, TELLS TERENCE FERNANDEZ AND LLEW-ANN PHANG THAT HE MAY BE UNPOPULAR, BUT HIS CONSCIENCE IS CLEAR. Tell us about the promises. I promised things in principle only. I never made specific promises. Remember last year’s councillor appointments? We asked you about 8-8-8 and you said “who said 8-8-8?” That was what Edward (Lee – Bukit Gasing assemblyman) said. And it was used in the campaign but it was not in DAP’s manifesto? No, it was not. DAP committed to only restoring local government elections. The good news is that we’re getting the report soon. We promised to go for restoration of local government elections. The idea of having NGOs came later. We brought it for checks and balances. My biggest concern is how to make sure political parties don’t go corrupt. The temptation is always there. It is the discipline and the system that comes in that blocks it. Like this talk about sharing of percentage and all that, surely came from somewhere. I don’t think Thiru (Petaling Jaya City Council councillor A. Thiruvenggadam) invented it. He must have heard it from somewhere he thought this was being implemented. No, it’s not. Because, we, DAP, said no. We said we cannot do that. We can only agree to balloting – meaning all the (names of) qualified fellows are put in a box and a few are picked. We cannot have pilih kasih (favouritism). You guys are getting a lot of flak for some of the policies. Do you think there were overexpectations? I think there was and I don’t blame them because they realise this is a new government. And they realise that these fellows talked about all these high values before. So they expect you to do it. And you cannot deliver some of the promises because you realised … Some people over-promised. Not the government per se. The parties which make up the state government may have promised and sometimes we can oblige and sometimes we cannot. One example – we never promised 20 cu m of free water. PAS didn’t, it was Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR). But looking at the finances, we thought we could afford it despite it costing RM11 million a month which amounts to more than RM100 million a year. We helped PKR honour that promise. Keadilan promised

to reduce quit rent too. I checked with all the local council presidents, they said they could not afford it. (Selangor mentri besar) Tan Sri (Abdul Khalid Ibrahim) also agreed, we could not afford it, so we didn’t do it.

have gone wrong. Listen. We have councillors in a finance committee with more power to oversee such things. And then we have an audit and corporate governance committee.

But your (Pakatan Rakyat) national manifesto didn’t have that? No, it didn’t. We said not now at least but we did do something. By right some of the local councils should have raised the quit rent two to three years ago. The state secretary told me the working principle to decide how much to (increase) quit rent. Each year, you allow about 3% (increase). It is not written but that’s the norm for every local government. Selangor has not done that in 10 years. That means the rate should have been revised by 30% now but they did not do it because they wanted to win elections. They didn’t follow the principle. They even blamed the DAP who always questioned the hike in quit rent. So I just laugh and smile … But we decided not to raise it though it is long overdue. In fact there’s one local council (Petaling Jaya), where we allowed a reduction because (residents in) high-rise (buildings), apartments, condos, were paying higher quit rent than (those in) landed property which is unfair. So I allowed them to reduce, costing them revenue losses of RM8 million a year. I checked with the council president if he could afford it. He said he could by not spending on junkets, plastic flowers and all that. MBPJ can make some more money from the billboards. I think we have fulfilled up to 50% of the so-called collective promises – either from my party or the other parties. Others will take time.

Instead of having an overlapping committee why don’t you have the councillors sit in the tender committee? We’re doing it because there have been unsubstantiated complaints that officers are giving out contracts to cronies.

You were vocal with the shadow MPPJ. Now you are in the seat that you used to criticise. After one-and-a-half years, you’ve realised that it is not as easy at it seems … But do you feel some empathy or sympathy for your predecessors? A little bit. But we made a lot of changes like allowing people to attend meetings. In future, draft plans will be online and you won’t have to buy hard copies. We’ve barred state assemblymen who are also councillors. In fact, in the first year, I stopped all politicians from being in the quotation and tender boards. But that is where you guys

Now, the officers are there without the councillors overseeing them and continuing their nonsense. That’s what you’re saying but there’s no proof. The whole year we have taken action but that’s just a fraction of cases with evidence. We have very strong people and councillors in those committees. It is not easy for them to muck around unless they’re old hands. We’ve changed the system. So you’re saying like in the case of PJ, all the hankypanky was done more by the councillors than the officers? Yes. Not only MBPJ, MPK (Klang Municipal Council), Subang Jaya (municipal council – MPSJ). They may not disclose the names but I know exactly who (is involved). Every local council has characters controlling more than 30% of the total projects because they are YBs (yang berhormats). The YDP is also YB but yang berbahagia, not yang berhormat. In fact these fellows give directions, they decide, they endorse. That’s what happens in the tender board. That is the reason why I took it away and replaced it with something else to oversee (the process). I also did it because I don’t want our councillors to be involved while the system has yet to be cleaned up. So I’d rather have an oversight system. So the monitoring is done by the committee and another committee makes the decision so there are checks and balances. But there are still complaints. Because the possibility of officers giving contracts only to friends is there although we have not found much evidence. So we made the necessary changes. In fact, from this year – it has been passed by the exco – I tabled it and it was approved. The quotation and tender board has one from DAP, one from PAS, one from Keadilan and one from an NGO while still keeping

The Malaysian AntiCorruption Commission can carry out investigations but I can say you can’t catch me because I didn’t do those things.

the finance committee and the audit and corporate governance committee and these members are just ordinary councillors, appointed by the party. I want parties to appoint, not the council presidents, these representatives to the tender board. We’re doing these things. It’s not like when we introduce something we hold on to it, despite the public complaints – no! We change! When the need arises, we change! I am not shy to approach the exco and apply to make the changes. But systems that we think are working, we continue (with them) despite having to pay a bit more. Like the introduction of the councillors’ offices – there’s a lot of scepticism. That cost us a lot of money but I said this is the only way to help councillors become effective because they have their own offices where people can go and lodge their complaints. How do councillors make ends meet on a RM750 allowance? It’s a sacrifice. I think people won’t mind it if every local authority has two to six full-time councillors paid a director’s salary because they serve that role. They take on more portfolios and they are there full time. Correct. I agree. We are talking about reviewing (the salary scales). We increased it from RM500 to RM750. We increased meeting allowances from RM50 to RM100 and allowed those that can afford it to pay RM150. But they get a minimum of RM100 for every meeting they attend compared to RM30 or RM50. Of course we have to increase the allowance further despite

criticisms from (Datuk Seri Dr Mohd) Khir Toyo and others. Can the local authorities afford to pay four councillors RM12,000-RM15,000 each a month? Some can afford it but the question will be why are we doing it for certain local authorities and for only certain people. What about a job interview and letting people apply? Unless we don’t call them ahli majlis … And call them professionals with equal authority. Like what we’re trying to introduce in MBPJ – the public complaints director. We are looking towards that kind of thing but I still believe in finding financially independent ahli majlis. We’re also trying to get people who have a lot of time. Because if they don’t have time, they cannot serve well and if they’re not financially independent, they will be troubled with their own jobs and businesses and in the end they cannot focus on their job. And that’s when the possibility of corruption comes in. That’s why we’ve set these two criteria and given them a lot of weight but not to the extent of denying all the new people. So we still have to allow the young ones in, we’re trying to strike a balance. Is there a concerted effort to undo the sins of the past? Certainly. Do you find yourself preoccupied with undoing mistakes when you are supposed to be governing the state? No. We realise that we have to divide our time and energy to tackle these two things. That’s