Posts Tagged Samy Vellu
Meeting with the Minister of Works
Posted by sripetaling.net in Events & Meetings, News & Developments, Residents Actions on October 19th, 2005
Resident representatives meeting with the Minister of Works
On 17 October, 2005, I received a SMS from YB Teresa Kok that Works Minister, YB Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu has requested her to convey a notice for meeting with the residents’ representatives to be held on 19 October at 4pm. Subsequently, I received calls and fax from the authorities informing the meeting with the Minister. The conditions were that the representatives are limited to three and no media should be invited.
Our action committee had an emergency meeting and nominated three representatives as follows:
- Lau Kien Foh – Overall representative
- Au Lai Koong – Represent Zon N
- Sallehudin – Represent Zon L
We also agreed on the strategy and action steps. We decided to take the opportunity to show all the documentation evidence and convince the Minister on our positions.
On 19 October 2005, our team arrived at the ministry half an hour before the meeting and soon joined by YB Teresa. We were invited into the meeting room around 4pm. In the meeting room, there were about 20 senior officers from the authorities. We took the opportunity to introduce ourselves and also get to know them. About 10 mins later, the Minister walked into the meeting room and shook hands with us.
Samy to meet Sri Petaling reps
Posted by sripetaling.net in News & Developments, Press Coverage on October 5th, 2005
From the desk of The Star
Wednesday October 5, 2005 Samy to meet Sri Petaling reps KUALA LUMPUR: The RM1.2bil Kuala Lumpur-Putrajaya Highway project will go on but Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu will meet repesentatives of the Sri Petaling residents to find a way to resolve their problems. The Works Minister however said that because the highway was on Government land, compensation was out of the question for the residents who complained that the walls of their houses cracked due to the construction works. “We are not occupying the land. If we were to pay compensation, we would be setting a bad precedent,” he told newsmen after meeting Finland’s foreign trade and development minister Mari Kiviniemi at his office here yesterday. Samy Vellu said the ministry had written to the housing developer Seri Petaling Development in 1996 of its intention to acquire the land to build the Kuala Lumpur-Putrajaya-KLIA Highway. (The Putrajaya-KLIA phase was later scrapped.) “Due to the economic crisis then, the construction of the highway was delayed but the developers went ahead with the houses,” he said. Samy Vellu said the Government had so far spent RM400mil on the highway which was expected to lighten traffic flow along the KL-Seremban Highway. He said noise barriers would be built along the boundary of the highway and the residential area to shut out the din from traffic.Minister blames residents for causing cracks in their own homes instead!
Posted by sripetaling.net in Citizen Suffers, News & Developments, Press Coverage on October 1st, 2005
Cracks begin to appear to the adjacent houses affected by the continuous piling and construction works. In a desperate attempt shed responsibility, the Minister of Works without any investigation puts the blame on the residents for causing the cracks in their own homes
Cracks in the homes …
Subsequently, the residents have agreed to appoint an independent body to investigate the cause of cracks. IKRAM was commissioned to conduct the study. The study results conclusively determined that the cause of cracks in the homes is due to the water table balance. This effect of caisson digging have pumped out the water from the ground which has destabilize the soil and cause the nearby homes to sink and crack!
Illustration on cause of crack in homes
Response to issues raised during press conference by Minister of Works, Datuk Seri S Samy Vellu
Posted by sripetaling.net in Press Coverage, Residents Actions on September 25th, 2005
The Works Minister made the following statements during their press conference to respond to the issues that was raised by us but we believe he was fed with wrong information to start with.
Subsequently, the residents held a press conference on 24 Sept 2005 to respond to the statements made by the Works Minister. Here are the details of our response.
Point 1: “The purpose of the highway is to ease the traffic at KL-Seremban highway. It is important to proceed as the traffic volume at KL-Seremban highway has increased significantly.”
Residents Response:
The residents support development projects by the Government. We believe the Government has done proper due diligence and viability studies before approving this highway project. However, we do not believe that it is the Government’s intention to plan for certain sections of the highway (in this case the stretch along Jalan 2/149 at Sri Petaling) to cause the residents to live in fear for the rest of their life. This is definitely not consistent with the “Caring Government” as advocated.
In additions, we do not believe that the Government would approve the setback of 2.3m which is clearly breaching its own guidelines; the Government would also not allow project to be carried out without prior consultation/ briefing with the affected residents
Point 2: “Construction work started about 30% and spent about RM400mil. If changes to the engineering construction design, it will cause delay and additional costs.”
Residents Response:
We believe our Government is far sighted. We understand that this is supposed to be a “Protocol Highway” that will be another national icon for Malaysian. Surely, we would not allow mistake/error by the authorities to make us a laughing stock for the world. There are alternatives to resolve the mistake and timely resolution will cause the Government less as compared to ignoring the mistake made.
Protest at Malaysia Parliament House
Posted by sripetaling.net in Events & Meetings, News & Developments, Residents Actions on September 20th, 2005
While all the effort to communicate and resolve our issues ignored, the residents decided to stage a protest at the Malaysia Parliament House during one of the sitting.
The residents conducted a peaceful protest at the Parliament on the 19 Sept 2005. Arriving in the morning, close to about 100 residents of Sri Petaling lifted their spirits and colorful banners to voice their displeasure for the construction of the highway so close to their homes.
We prepared a memorandum to be handed to some of the Members of Parliament for the purpose of highlighting our struggle. We met Dato Shahrir Samad who is the chairman of Backbenchers Club and Public Accounts Committee (PAC). He received our memorandum and agreed to investigate into the matter. We also distributed leaflets which was circulating in the House hoping the Works Minister would take notice our effort to contact him.
Here are some of the selected pictures . (Click on the pictures to see the whole gallery)
We finally managed to meet the Works Minister, Samy Vellu and he mentioned a few statements regarding the project indicating that he is not afraid to meet the residents because he is NOT in the wrong. He got all fired up and screamed when one of the residents made a harsh but true comment about him and the project.
Click here to see more pictures of our protest at the Parliament House of Malaysia
The following were some of the achievements during the protest.
- We managed to achieve the following at the parliament picketing
- Distributed about 400 flyers to all passer-by going in and out of the Parliament
- Met up with Dato Shahrir, Chairman of Public Accounts Committee to present our case
- Press interview with ntv7
- Finally we managed to meet Datuk Seri S Samy Vellu on his way out of the Parliament
We hope the Minister would seriously look into our request this time.
Actual SMS responses from Minister of Works, Samy Vellu
Posted by sripetaling.net in News & Developments, Residents Actions on August 10th, 2005
Malaysian Minister of Works, Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu
Actual SMS reply from Minister of Works when Member of Parliament, YB Teresa Kok attempted to seek an opportunity for residents to meet the Minister, Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu.
“YB Theresa no one can stop this RM 1.3 billion project The road is within our ROW. Any ATTEMPT to stop work means heavy Compensation..Sorry. Samyvellu” - Short Message Service reply on Aug 8, 2005
Resident’s Dilemma - Residents are not capable of taking legal action against Govt as ‘Heavy Compensation’ is involved.
“YB Theresa The Sri Petaling residents objection overruled. The Government is compelled to build the road on land acquired by the Govt paying several hundred millions ringgit.That project is important to ease the traffic in KL/Seremaan Highway. samyvellu” - Short Message Service reply on Aug 7, 2005
Resident’s Dilemma - The Govt ‘FORGOT’ to acquire adequate land in Sri Petaling which was AVAILABLE when the project was approved in 1997. In year 2000, available land was developed into middle class housing. Unsuspecting buyers bought houses and now victims of a federal Govt project!
“YB Theresa This project is already there before the Housing project. This is neither a new acquisition nor a new project. The government has paid heavy compensation to do this alternate protocol dedicated highway. No further delay or meeting with anyone will be allowed. The job will go on Sorryi Samyvellu.” - Short Message Service reply on Aug 8, 2005
Resident’s Dilemma - Malaysian Govt knew about the planned housing project. They also know about the inadequate width for the elevated highway but DID NOTHING to acquire available land then. Unsuspecting buyers bought houses built on the then ‘available KL-Putrajaya Highway land’.
Why didn’t the Govt acquire adequate land when it was available?
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Random Pictures
Highway Key Facts
26KM stretches from Kampung Pandan to Putrajaya
consession signed on 22 Oct 1997
adequate land was available then
resident wrote letter to LLM to advice them to ensure adequate buffer zone since there is land (1997)
project was shelved due to economic crisis
DBKL approved housing project when they should have reserved the land for highway
houses built and sold to unsuspecting buyers
land was 'lost' in the process due to authorities blunder
project is bulldozed through despite protest for safety
project is in breach of their own guidelinesIsn't it ironic?
LLM, DBKL, DOE say they are not aware about the sheer proximity of the highway to the homes!
A resident has written to the authorities way back in 1997 to realign the Right Of Way of the highway to utilize the undeveloped Zone N. [click here to see the letter and how it fell on deaf ears of the authorities]
The developer of Zone N (Petaling Garden Berhad) managed to obtain approval to build houses along a path of designated federal highway. How can that be?