KL-Putrajaya Highway, Government Project Gone Bad

Last week on 24 June 2009, Dato’ Ketua Pengarah of Lembaga Lebuhraya Malaysia organized a meeting to meet the residents representatives regarding the issues highlighted in our email earlier. It was a well represented meeting with relevant organizations like Kementerian Kerja Raya (KKR), Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur (DBKL), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), highway concessionaire and of course LLM themselves.

The meeting provided a platform for us to reestablish our long forgotten struggle and reengage with LLM to seek a resolution to our issues. We were also glad that we were able to share our concerns and highlight any incorrect information that was provided to Dato’ Ketua Pengarah previously.

We presented 3 key issues of which we are seeking resolution to immediately. They are :

1. Long outstanding decision for an amicable solution
Independent studies by Biro Pengaduan Awam and Jabatan Audit Negara confirmed the flaws in the approval of the highway project which has caused a negative impact to the residents. They have recommended the Government to find a solution which included the acquisition of all the affected houses or provide compensation on any loss incurred by the affected residents.

Based on our previous survey conducted with the affected residents, the majority wanted compensation for the loss of market value and cost to mitigate air and noise pollution (eg. installing air conditioning system, double glazed windows, ionisers and exhaust fans).

2. Noise pollution far exceeded the limit approved
We also presented our findings where the noise levels have exceeded the approved limit stated in the condition of EIA approval.

We hope that Government is able to provide a better quality of life for the residents living next to the highway by installing noise barriers of appropriate height for both above in the elevated section and below the highway to mitigate the noise impact to the level in compliance with the EIA approval.

3. Outstanding repair work / compensation for houses with cracks
We also highlighted to Dato’ Ketua Pengarah that the repair work / compensation for houses with cracks and the monitoring work by DBKL have halted.

We believe that Dato’ Ketua Pengarah will be able to conduct a thorough review of the progress and resume the initiative to repair / compensate the cracked houses

We sent in an official letter summarizing our meeting with LLM on June 26 of which Dato’ Ketua Pengarah had replied indicating that he will be preparing a report to be sent to Ministry of Works while some of the items needs to be brought to the Minister’s attention for resolution.

We would like to thank Dato’ for looking into this matter on behalf of the affected residents and hopefully we can see the light soon.

The exact details of our letter can be found here. [page 1][page 2][page 3][page 4]