City folk welcome Shahidan’s invite to discuss flood mitigation plans

 

Eight Kuala Lumpur residents had threatened to sue DBKL and federal territories minister Shahidan Kassim over the lack of information on flood mitigation measures for the city. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: A lawyer representing eight Kuala Lumpur residents planning to sue federal territories minister Shahidan Kassim and Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) over the lack of information on flood mitigation measures in the capital has welcomed the minister’s willingness to meet with them.

In a letter to Shahidan today, Lim Wei Jiet said his law firm was ready to organise a town hall meeting between his clients and other residents and Shahidan in the next one or two weeks.

“This would provide an avenue for both parties to have a two-way discussion on the information we have requested in our Sept 19 letter, as well as other flood mitigation measures,” said Lim.

“We believe it is important for this discussion to take place openly and in public as everyone is entitled to such information”.

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Lim said he hoped the federal territories ministry or DBKL will provide a venue for the town hall meeting, adding that his clients and other Kuala Lumpur residents would require a minimum of one week to make arrangements.

Shahidan issued the group an invitation to meet after Lim said last week the residents, led by former Malaysian Bar president Ambiga Sreenevasan, would go ahead with a lawsuit to compel him and DBKL to provide detailed information on the city’s flood mitigation measures.

Responding to the group’s initial letter requesting for the information, DBKL said it had published its flash floods action plan for the year on May 9 and that it was working with several agencies to mitigate floods based on this plan.

In reply, Lim said the action plan was “outdated” and did not contain adequately detailed information on DBKL’s flood mitigation strategy.

Today, Lim also dismissed Shahidan’s claim that the residents were looking to sue him and DBKL as they wanted publicity. He said they were pushing for transparency and information on the status of DBKL’s flood mitigation strategies.

“Only with information can public policies be scrutinised and improved, which in turn will reduce the impact of the coming year-end floods on millions of Kuala Lumpur residents,” he said. - FMT