The Hanging Flowerpots of Butterworth
Unnecessary structures: Flimsy covered phone booths that fell apart soon after being installed
Weird and tacky lamp-posts: Each lamp-post had the letters MPSP up in lights! Notice the hooks where flower pots once hung (you can just about see the hooks below the four lamps). What they didn’t factor in was what a tough job watering the plants would be! I guess they simply gave up on watering them and all the plants probably died a slow death. Today the “Hanging Flowerpots of Butterworth” are history. (Reminds me of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon!) Wonder who got the contract to supply these lamp-posts.
I am not surprised that the Seberang Perai Municipal Coucil is almost broke. Over the years, they have indulged in all kinds of “beautification projects” costing hundreds of thousands of ringgit while the basics such as proper drains for the whole town were neglected.
In the name of “beautification”, they put new pavements in - only to dig them up several years later and replace them with newer pavements, in many places where people hardly walked. They put up all kinds of weird structures - especially tacky, ornamental street lamp-posts and dim pavement lighting for pedestrians. These pedestrian lights were largely unnecessary because they were usually in places where people hardly walked at night or they were near the main street lights, so that the additional light provided was minimal.
At about the same time, they put up these flimsy covered phone booths all over town, which started falling apart even before the phones could be installed!
There was a beautiful green space in town, the padang - but then they erected this enormous dewan named after Abdullah Badawi’s father. You can see a bit of it on the right of the lamp-post above. Sadly, the field is I believe no longer big enough for the football league matches that were once played there, and which were avidly watched by some Butterworth residents.
Almost all the recreational spaces in Butterworth have been lost. The tennis court next to the padang is no more. It has been converted to an artificial rock garden and pond with fountains, which few people actually visit. The entire beach front along Butterworth is not easily accessible to the public now, no thanks to the Butterworth Outer Ring Road. And then they wonder why the youth turn to unhealthy activities. Where are the open recreational spaces for them in town? Where are the parks?
True, they planted lots of trees and shrubs, so that Butterworth today looks a lot greener - but how much did all those trees and shrubs cost? And what about those huge flowerpots on the road dividers?
Meanwhile, the main drains of Butterworth, outside the town centre, remain in horrible condition with stagnant water, aggravated by haphazard ad hoc construction of drains by property developers.
The amount of public money wasted on “beautification” projects over the years has been scandalous. And all the while, urban pioneers in “squatter” settlements lived in deplorable conditions not far away until many of them were evicted to make way for “development”.
Hardly anyone in Butterworth knew who their town councillors were; nor did they know who was responsible for such extravagant expenditure.
Butterworth is a prime example of why we need to bring back local council elections - and fast.
Penang to make auditor’s findings public, says Lim
By DERRICK VINESH
derrickvinesh@thestar.com.my
BUTTERWORTH: The findings of the private auditor into the financial status of Seberang Prai Municipal Council (MPSP), whose reserves fell from RM229mil in 2000 to just RM25.6mil at the end of 2007, will be made public.
Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said the public had the right to know how the council’s reserves had come down.
“If the municipal council had built a lapangan terbang (airport) here, perhaps we can understand.
“But, there is no lapangan terbang and yet the money could terbang (fly),” he said.
Lim said those who were not involved in any mishandling of funds need not fear as the auditing process was merely aimed at improving the council’s performance.
“But the guilty ones who took public money and became very rich will be investigated,” he said when opening Bagan Dalam assemblyman A. Tanasekharan’s service centre in Jalan Bagan Luar here yesterday.
He said the new state government was worried the council would be broke by the end of the year.
Lim said many expected the new state government to continue helping the people with big projects, but that would not be possible when there were no more reserves.
“If there are disasters, we will definitely help the people. But to come up with projects, we must look at our financial situation first,” he said.
On April 1, state Local Government Committee chairman Chow Kon Yeow said the council, with an accumulated deficit of RM226mil over the last eight years, had been scraping the bottom of the barrel.
On April 4, former councillor Datuk Dr Loga Bala Mohan said large portions of the council’s reserves were spent on the State Stadium in Batu Kawan (RM110mil), the council’s headquarters (RM83mil), Dewan Milenium (RM24mil) and the Central Seberang Prai district sports complex (RM12.8mil).
Penang Consumer Protection Association president K. Koris said the council could have retained high reserves if it had asked for federal funds to build its headquarters and a district sports complex.
Sungai Dua assemblyman Datuk Jasmin Mohamed called for the council to tutup kedai (close shop) and hand over its duties to the state government if it was incapable of handling its finances.
He said the council’s land administrative duties should also be surrendered to the three district offices in Seberang Prai…
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Printable version
- PKR councillor’s sacking from MPSP creates a stir
- No surprise that MPSP is nearly broke
- MPPP must rise to the occasion this Friday and reject PGCC
- Komtar trees hacked and chopped
- MPPP formally rejects Abad Naluri’s PGCC proposal
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Action must be taken against the rascals who used public funds as if it was their own.
Sometime back, I saw it with my own eyes, the MPPP in Youth Park took their plants from a Chinese nursery. This nursery lorry dropped those shrubs to Youth Park and I was like..WHAT! they even sub-con the planting of these tiny plants to a third party? Back then, I already felt it so wasteful to buy the plants from a third party when MPPP can easily have enough labourers to plant these plants themselves or just forget about all those tahi ayam flowers along the road.
I believed that this wastages is not confined to MPSB alone. Under the BN government, it seems to be the rights of all state municipals to spend lavishly in the name of beutification. However if one were to go through their account one would immediately detect the exorbitant prices paid out.
We hope the Pakatan Rakyat state government will expose and bring all these culprits to courts.
This is precisely what happens when you have half-past-six appointed councillors from the BN who don’t care two hoots about the feelings of local residents who pay rates! There is a high possibility of corruption involved with the installation of fixtures not related to the wants of local residents but rather to line the pockets of appointed BN councillors in shady deals. Now all the more we should have elected local councils. In cleaning up the mess Mr Chow Kon Yow should investigate whether there is negligence on the part of the BN-appointed Butterworth Municipal council president or his predecessor who is the UMNO/BN state exco in charge of local govt in Penang. The new DAP-led Pakatan State govt has a lot of spring-cleaning to do given the sordid mess left behind by the half-past-six BN appointed local councillors!!!!
To,
Mr.ANIL.
I have been in this trade of landscape almost 25 years and i do know a bit how the system work for a while to beutify.
The problem is,the so call specialist is sometimes or most of the times overlook certain things needs maintainance.Who going to bother after someone award the contract and finish off state fund without looking into long term solution of taking care the public funds.
For example,whenever PM/Menteri besar going to officiate something,you can noticed the amounts of money spend on plants.Its can be tune to hundreds of thousand of ringgit.
The town council people make some,the middle man make more than the nursery owner.I personally done some job with this people and the corruption level is to high.So for the matter of principle i dont undertake any goverment job any more due to my prinsip.
Alot of money just flows down the drain due to unplan or very carefull planning to make side money.Some of the town council department have their regular cronies.You are an accountant,you should be able to counts how many hundreds of millions tax payer money lost during this kind of scam.
A REQUEST FROM ME;YOUR GROUP OF BLOGGERS HAVE THE MEANS AND BRAINS TO FOCUS ON UTHAYAKUMAR MEDICAL NEEDS.WHY NOT KEEP UP THE PRESSURE FROM SOME OF YOUR GANGS TO FOCUS ON MEDICAL NEEDS OF UTAHAYAKUMAR.
i did try to ask some bloggers but unsucessfull so far.Some advise to lodge police report,report to mma or i can summerised it for your gang of bloggers,if AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL AND UNITED NATION PUT THE PRESSURE ON OUR PM,ITS WONT WORK.BECAUSE HE STILL NOT LISTENING.ONLY THE MALAYSIAN CAN DO THIS FOR UTHAYAKUMAR.
MALAYSIAN HAVE PROVEN THEY CAN OR ALMOST TOPPLE BARISAN.ITS JUST NEED SOME HELP FROM YOUR GANG OF BLOGGERS TO UNITE AND HELP UTHAYAKUMAR.OTHERS WILL FOLLOWS THE CROWD NATURALLY.LIKE THE RIVER FLOWS.MALAYSIAN ARE A BIT UNITED DUE TO THIS HINDRAF FACTOR.JUST DONT DENIES THEY HAVE NOT CONTRIBUTED TO THIS SO CALLED POLITICAL TSUNAMI.
thanks anill
raj raman,”once upon a time the silent majority but not now.I also trying my way of appealling throu people like you.”
MPSP is so broke that they don’t even have the fund to fix their garbage truck, resulting irregular service to the numerous taman. Look at the allocation for maintainance for these trucks, it has been used up even before the elections. How I know these facts? MPSP officer told me after I lodge complaint of irregular service for garbage collection.
Anil,
Why is it that it is always the playing fields that are always sacrificed when a new public building is constructed? More often than not there is no replacement for it. No wonder we are not producing any new Mokhtar Dahari or Soh Chin Auns nowadays, there is just no more place to play or even kick balls around. So EPL is the alternative so much so when Malaysia plays, there is nobody to cheer them on. Who wants to cheer them anyway since they are always on the losing end.
Anil:
Great job on highlighting the wastages of the previous Penang Govt. On beautification projects, I know Penang’s landscaping projects were singularly given to one contractor. The previous MPPP was also obsessed with fountains. I have brought this up to MPPP that fountains need maintenance and many of the fountains are no longer working after 2-3 years of installation. They become eyesores and cesspools after that.
I would urge more Penang based bloggers to devote some space to highlight wastages and bad governance in their Tamans. Empower ourselves and our friends and we can make changes. We did this on Mar 8.
Please also look at the ‘new’ multi storey parking building constructed by MPPP at Union Street, next to Maybank ( on Penang site ). The lobby itself is like a 4 star hotel lobby. Look at the design, it can match any of the expensive apartments at Kelawai Road, Penang.
People,,,,,,,
My greatest displeasure in Butterworth is, the distruction of playgrounds or feilds, to allow our young childeren, to play and develop their skills. If you were to take a drive around B.Ajam, B. Jermal, B Luar, Raja Uda, Mak Mandin and Sg. Puyu, what can and is happening is the removal of squatered houses and followed by housing developments and highway. Where is the feild?. When the squartered houses were there, hoola,,,there is a field craeted out of open space by the squartered residence, but with development and its gone.
In Mak Mandin there is a feild and I have watched the skillfull players displaying the ability to be future M Dahari’s, Soh Chin Aun’s, Santokh Singh’s and Arumugam’s,,,superb but, there are another 30-40 odd waiting to be on the field, to show their skills and due lack of ground and natural time constrain, the sun sets in the west and they have to return home.
I agree we have Futsal stadium to allow such activities but, that does not mean we must take away the inherent rights of natural fields or playgrounds in the name of develpment.
Instead of the MPSP spending millions on unbeneficial projects at large, why not purchase these squartered areas and develope them into playgrounds and fields. This will have a great impact on sports interested people, likewise it will have a trickling effect on sports business outlets, small stalls can be errected and who knows the lost years of Ali Bakar, Isa Bakar, Desmond David and other Penang greats can be enlightened.
We will be able to eradicate social problems, health conciousness will become porpular and it can be a meeting place for people.
I suggest that Raja Uda be the location for this purpose since, there are squartered place still available and the land can be used, after the people have been placed in to saffer locations.
I brought this matter to the attention of Little Napoleans in MPSP and the answer was “ohhh,… we have Batu Kawan Stadium as well as the sport centre in K. Batas. When I asked them what about the people in K Batas and Batu Kawan, if these Central Butterwortbh people were to go there, wiil it not be crouded. Wallaaaa….they come with someother sickening excuses really painful to the ears.
What logic do they apply, I wonder?
[...] SAY WHY NOT: YOU READY? WE READY! Color Blind - Centralised pig farm: Karim Mansor made a U-turn Anil Netto - The Hanging Flowerpots of Butterworth Raja Petra - COME CELEBRATE OUR WEDDING ANNIVERSARY RockyBru - 4 million thanks Zorro-unmasked - [...]
[...] SAY WHY NOT: YOU READY? WE READY! Color Blind - Centralised pig farm: Karim Mansor made a U-turn Anil Netto - The Hanging Flowerpots of Butterworth Raja Petra - COME CELEBRATE OUR WEDDING ANNIVERSARY RockyBru - 4 million thanks Zorro-unmasked - [...]
[...] In the name of “beautification”, they put new pavements in - only to dig them up several years later and replace them with newer pavements, in many places where people hardly walked. They put up all kinds of weird structures - especially tacky, ornamental street lamp-posts and dim pavement lighting for pedestrians. These pedestrian lights were largely unnecessary because they were usually in places where people hardly walked at night or they were near the main street lights, so that the additional light provided was minimal. (See pics here.) [...]