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YOUR OPINION | “To ensure that this never happens again, many more uncomfortable truths need to come to light.”
S’gor MB: the factory behind the pollution incident will be demolished
Malaysia Bharu: This is a joke? Does this mean all this while the city council did not know that the factory was operating illegally? Not even when they polluted the river earlier when they were fined RM60,000?
And Selangor Menteri Besar Amirudin Shari maintains that this is the only factory operating illegally near the river? MB’s explanation does not convince us that this illegal factory will not operate on its current site in the future.
The MB isn’t just trying to hide the pumpkin in his rice bowl, why is he spinning the subject? Whose responsibility is it to demolish the illegal structure? Not from the council?
Town halls are well known for selectively demolishing and confiscating the assets of poor street vendors who barely make a living on scraps. So why drag your feet, puzzles, and hesitations when it comes to illegal factories and suspected criminals who knowingly put our lives in danger?
When did this factory start operating and why has it been allowed to operate illegally for all this time? The Selayang City Council and the Selangor government owe the people an explanation.
Andrew Khoo: If this company is a repeat offender, why was the demolition order not issued when the first complex was issued?
If there was no planning permit for the structure on the ground, that would have been the case even the first time, right?
Sphzxcv: River pollution from factories has been going on for a long time. The main cause of all these problems is corruption.
Corruption is rapidly destroying our country and our natural resources. Large areas of our forests have been cut down for timber by illegal means. In Sarawak, logging licenses have been granted to cronies for corruption.
We see that corruption happens every day, but the government turns a blind eye.
New day: Obviously, this heavy machinery maintenance shop is well known because it has been a serial pollution offender.
Only now, after a massive public outcry, is it recognized that it shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Who was “paid” to look the other way from its construction to today?
This is not a shanty structure. It is a good business. The Selayang City Council cannot claim that it was unaware of its existence.
The business continued to operate until this week. Where was the control and enforcement due to the contamination history of this factory?
An uncomfortable truth has been discovered. To change and make sure our worst water outage never happens again, many more uncomfortable truths must emerge.
EM: In fact, the MB is fuming a lot to make sure attention is focused on this alleged polluter and doesn’t raise other embarrassing questions:
1. Why was the factory allowed to continue operating after its previous contamination incident?
2. How did an unlicensed operation without planning permission from the Selayang City Council go unnoticed for so long?
3. How could such a team request and obtain water and electricity supplies over the years?
4. What has Pengurusan Air Selangor been doing specifically to check the sources of contamination and how often?
In addition, facts and figures about who have been licensed for hazardous waste disposal and how much they charge are deliberately hidden.
As with everything else in this corrupt country, I believe that various criminals, facilitators, and gofers are struggling for cover even as politicians do their best to keep things that will expose their incompetence and what could well be their collusion at bay. It allows shady companies to operate without fear of consequences.
BlueKucing0750: If they didn’t have the planning permission, how could they have been operating for some time without the knowledge of law enforcement?
Tell us how they can escape. Was someone sleeping at work?
What about the other illegal factories within the water catchment areas? Surely this company is not the only one.
GrayJiraffe0679: What assurance is there that contamination will not recur?
We could also simply revoke the operating license if there are no safety standards for waste management, but rather for dumping it into the country’s waterways.
Why should consumers suffer over and over again?
Wilcox Malaysia At first, he was as furious as anyone else over the latest incident. Water outages due to contamination shouldn’t occur at all.
So why did it happen then and for the second time? It is very easy to point the finger at this particular criminal – he is an exposed and clear target.
But if we dig deeper and ask more probing questions, we are likely to find deep-seated mismanagement and even criminal activity with everyone connected to this problem, including law enforcement officers and the city council.
On the other side of the Strait: That’s just solving the symptom, not the solution. If you were to think about the problem carefully, this is just one of the many other contaminants that have emerged over the years.
It will take more than shutting down this factory to solve the problem.
It has to be holistic and involve multiple agencies before the problem can be eliminated, but I’m not hopeful with the current way the country is governed.
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