Excellent Work Which Should Be Praised And Emulated

At a time when there are so many complaints of shoddy work and wastage of funds by employing middlemen and sub-contractors, especially in government projects, the following Bernama report is indeed heartwarming and encouraging.

The residents of Taman Selasih Phase 2 here found that they saved RM600,000 by building a surau in their housing estate at half the cost without contracting out the job.

This was achieved through the effort of Kamarul Halim Muhammad, an architect resident of the housing estate who designed the house of worship and supervised its construction, and did not take a profit in the process.

He spent about 11 months on the project, which was completed several days ago and a thanksgiving event was held Sunday. The Darul Muhajirin surau replaces the old surau built in 1984.

"Without offering a contract, the project was completed at a cost of about RM600,000. If the job had been contracted out, it would have cost at least RM1.2 million," Halim told Bernama.

Chairman of the Surau Construction Committee Lt-Kol (Rtd) Mohd Hafifi Kassim said the project was started in June last year soon after the committee obtained some funds from the residents and the public.

"We found that after work started on the surau, the donations from philanthropists and private companies began pouring in and more than RM600,000 was received," he said.

Halim said that though the building fund was small in the beginning, the construction went on unimpeded as donations continued to come from the people.

During the last Ramadhan month alone, donations of more than RM100,000 were collected for the surau, regarded by the residents as the most beautiful in Selangor in the category of suraus that cost less than RM1 million.

Chairman of the Muslim Welfare Organisation in the housing estate, Abdul Rahman Jaafar, said the resident had also made contributions in the form of building materials.

The imam of the surau, Bakri Abdul Rahman, described the successful construction of the surau as proof of the unity among the residents and other Muslims.

***** To those involved in this project as well as the generous benefactors and donors we wish to say Syabas! This is how things should be done and it is hoped that the construction of this surau would serve as an excellent example for others to learn and emulate. For a start our government should learn from these folks at Taman Selasih on how to economize and spend wisely, without kickbacks, commissions and sub-contracting to cronies.