Shahidan, make KL a world-class city

 

MP SPEAKS | I wish to congratulate my old friend from the opponent party, Arau MP Shahidan Kassim, on his appointment as federal territories minister. 

He is a senior and experienced politician who has held the post of Perlis menteri besar and was the former minister in the Prime Minister's Department.

When Shahidan was a backbencher, he was quite boisterous and sparred incessantly with opposition MPs in the Dewan Rakyat. He loved to debate on practically all parliamentary bills, to the point of repeating his arguments again and again just to taunt opposition MPs. 

He also constantly interrupted opposition MPs when they delivered their speeches in Parliament.

Shahidan used to disturb me whenever I presented issues and problems of Kuala Lumpur in the Dewan Rakyat. I am glad that he is now appointed the FT minister. 

I hope he can now seriously listen to the views of KL MPs and govern the capital city of Malaysia more effectively.

My wishlist for Shahidan is as follows:

1. I hope Shahidan is fully aware of the efforts of the federal government to make Kuala Lumpur a world-class city. The FT minister must think globally in order to make KL attractive to business and tourism to the world and to realise the slogan and concept of “Malaysia Truly Asia”. With this objective in mind, the FT minister should have more consultation with various business sectors, particularly those in F&B and tourism business. This sector clearly attracts foreign currency and the government is urged to implement practical regulations including SOPs on Covid-19 to smoothen their businesses.
2. I hope Shahidan can be an FT minister who is friendly and open to KL MPs of Pakatan Harapan. I hope he won’t follow the bad example of former minister Annuar Musa who had always avoided meeting with MPs of Kuala Lumpur. In fact, Annuar had only one meeting with KL MPs last month, online at that, since becoming FT minister.
3. I hope Shahidan could emulate the former FT minister Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor and Khalid Samad by holding regular meetings with KL MPs together with high-ranking officers of DBKL, so that the MPs can present the problems and issues in our respective constituencies and get feedback from the DBKL officers in the meeting at the same time.
4. I hope Shahidan can go to the ground to understand the problems faced by KL folks. I also hope he will consult elected representatives before he makes any important decisions, such as the approval of development projects and other matters in our respective constituencies.
5. The FT minister is also the chair of meetings of the National Security Council (NSC) in FT. I hope Shahidan will invite the KL MPs to join the meeting so that we can become the bridge between NSC and the grassroots and business sectors in Kuala Lumpur.
6. I hope Shahidan can allow KL MPs to appoint members of the Residents’ Representatives Council (Majlis Perwakilan Penduduk or MPP) in all the zones in our respective parliamentary constituencies. So that the MPP can have better working relations with the MPs’ service centres in order to give better service to the people.

Shahidan is the former menteri besar of Perlis and he is pretty familiar with the system of governance in the state. 

I hope he can administer Kuala Lumpur like the way he led the state government, and he should treat KL MPs as excos in the state government and have regular meetings with us.

The close cooperation between the FT minister and KL MPs will not only reduce open conflict between MPs and the minister, but the close cooperation between the FT Ministry, DBKL and the elected representatives will smoothen the governance of Kuala Lumpur and this will create harmony among the society of Kuala Lumpur. - Mkini

---

TERESA KOK is Seputeh MP.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.