'Resign' - UM students union demands action over fire incident

 

The Universiti Malaya Students Union (UMSU) said those who failed to take appropriate action in response to a recent fire at one of the university's residential colleges must resign.

Additionally, they urged the university management to take matters concerning student welfare and safety seriously.

“UMSU strongly condemns the Universiti Malaya management for ignoring student welfare and safety, and demands that someone must step down to take responsibility for the negligence caused,” it said.

This comes after a fire broke out at the university’s seventh residential college.

A union representative, when contacted by Malaysiakini, claimed that the fire took place on May 12, 2022, at approximately 11.15am.

In a statement today, the union claimed that UM’s management had failed to take action after students reported a damaged fan through the university’s UMhelpdesk portal.

“The lackadaisical attitude and failure of the UM management to attend to the matter ultimately led to the issue, which may have been exacerbated into a big fire had the students not been in the room.

“If that was not worse enough, the UM management has continued to show great unprofessionalism thereafter - they replaced the burnt fan with a new fan, without ascertaining the cause of the fire, ie checking whether the wires were faulty, despite student complaints that there are occasionally burnt smells coming from the newly replaced unit,” UMSU said.

Facilities are ‘old, risky’

They also noted that the current facilities in the residential colleges were what the union described to be “old, risky and sometimes not functioning” and remained unchanged by the management.

“We strongly demand the UM management to take students’ welfare and safety issues seriously, and someone must step down to take responsibility for the negligence caused,” said the union.

This is not the first time the union has expressed concerns over students’ safety at the university.

Earlier this year, it had urged the university to conduct all final examinations online due to safety concerns over the current surge in the Omicron variant of Covid-19 cases in the country.

They had expressed their concern that several faculties intended to hold the final examinations for the then-semester in person.

Malaysiakini has reached out to UM's Corporate Communications Office on the matter and is waiting for a response. - Mkini