Have Local Councils Become Heartless Gangsters?

Please tell me if the following report should happen in what is claimed to be a caring society. Should unelected local authority big shots be allowed to ride roughshod over poverty stricken citizens and enforce unjust rules, just like an unholy alliance of alongs and bouncers, actively aided by the police, all for the sake and benefit of some filthy rich conglomerate? Read on....

MPAJ Demolishes 51 Homes, Homeless Left In The Rain.

The residents of Kampung Berembang, Ampang could only stand in the rain with their crying children and watch in despair as their homes of forty years were torn down by five bulldozers on the order of the Selangor government.

Their worldly belongings were scattered in piles outside their wrecked homes, drenched in the rain. Around them, hundreds of Ampang Jaya Municipal Council (MPAJ) enforcement officers stood and watched. Earlier in the afternoon, two of the houses were mysteriously razed in a fire. It is learned that 21 residents and activists have been detained so far for hampering demolition efforts.

This was a surprising turn of events considering that earlier this morning, the Prime Minister's Department had issued a letter addressed to Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Mohamad Khir Toyo asking to defer the demolition of the houses to April 30, next year.

Along with representatives from some non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the residents had assembled in front of a half-completed structure which was to be the management office of a project to be undertaken there, located beside their village, as early as 8am. They had also formed a barricade of cars and wooden planks in front of their houses to prevent the bulldozers from ripping into their homes, which they claimed were built since the 1960s, when the place was still a mining area and a mini-jungle.

However, things got ugly when several of the MPAJ officers tried to force their way through and performed citizen's arrest on eight people, including two women. "We're afraid they might pull another "guerilla" tactic on us" said a resident, Norhayati Aini Mohd Yusof, 49.

She said that on Friday, bulldozers unexpectedly turned up and tore down four houses in the village while everyone was away at work. By noon, the NGOs and resident representatives had managed to get a letter from the Prime Minister's Department to stop the demolition, but the residents said they would not be placated until the bulldozers and MPAJ officers left.

It seemed that they were right in being suspicious because barely an hour after the letter was issued, a melee broke out and truckloads of Federal Reserve Unit Police had to be deployed to the site. A fire broke out in one of the houses soon after and the bulldozers made their way into the village, flattening down houses.

According to a NGO representative Y. Kohila, the houses, totalling 51 in all, were to be demolished to make way for a mega development project by the Acmar Group of Companies, to be completed by 2010.

"I, like many others, have lived here since 1964. Now that we have made the place livable and valuable, they (the state government) want to take it away from us," a resident Noralizan Ali, 43, told Bernama. "We have seen the title deed to this land. It belongs to several individuals, not the state government," he added, but refused to name the owners.

MPAJ, however, maintained that it was a squatter area and that the government had a right to evict the squatters there. There were initially 1,085 squatter homes in the Ampang district, and the council had managed to relocate all but the 51 homes in Kampung Berembang, said the MPAJ Town Planning Director Awang Mustapha Md Yunus.

The residents had filed for an injunction against MPAJ on March 6 this year to prevent it from taking any action against them, but another court ruling later overruled it.

When asked why MPAJ went ahead with the demolition despite the letter from the Prime Minister's Department, Awang Mustapha said that they had referred back to the state government who gave them the green light.

On the fate of the families from the 51 homes, he said: "We have given them ample notice, and offered to rehouse them in Kampung Muhibbah, Puchong, but they refused. "And when they filed the injunction against us, they automatically absolved their right towards any kind of compensation. We are no longer obliged to rehouse or compensate them."

-- BERNAMA

***** After reading that how do you feel? Can a mere Majlis Perbandaran functionary overrule a directive from the PM's Department without the tacit approval of that slimy shorty in the Menteri Besar's office? Is there no limit to Khir Toyo's greed? He has been accused of almost every offence in the book of graft but still remains in the chair and now acts as the nation's dictator, Aduh Hitler.

Who are the people behind this Acmar Group of Companies? How many politicians, active and retired, former senior civil servants and assorted criminal types sit on its board of directors or are directly/indirectly on its payroll? Why the indecent haste and the brutal show of force bringing in hundreds of majlis thugs as well as the FRU? What's in it for Khir Toyo and the senior officials of the MPAJ? What compels them to take the side of a powerful and wealthy business entity against the pitiful grinding poverty, the evicted victims so starkly represent? And finally what is the publicly humiliated Prime Minister's Department going to do about this gross act of insubordination?

Related posts:
1) MPAJ - The Evil Authority.
2) Ampang Jaya Municipal Council (MPAJ) - MURDERERS.