Public Consultation

Many attended the inaugural dialogue session between YB Ronnie Liu, Selangor State Exco for Local Government and Residents last Sunday at the D'Kelana Hall, Petaling Jaya. This is part of the roadshow program hosted by the State Government to gather information from the residents about the performance of local authorities. It was done as many questions raised during the last State Assembly Meeting were targeted at the performance of local authorities.

The session ran wild a bit when many people wanted to share their concerns. Many touched on the security, shoddy infrastructure works, traffic congestion, illegal use of residential buildings, complaints management system, lack of responses, ineffective of communication, malpractice, planning approval for development projects and other administration problems. These problems are very much local centric and is resolvable. Many time, the problems were accumulated over some time due to inaction and lack of communication. It is believed with some form of urgency, pro activeness and monitoring, many of the problems can be solved. All in all, meet them in person as fast as possible instead of getting the problems out of hand. We must remember the parable of broken window that you have to fix a problem faster than it can further deteriorate or else it will become unsolvable. Similarly, an urban services minor problem will become major if not attended to. For example, a pot hole due to water leaking will be getting bigger if no action is taken.

During the session also saw the name calling. To me, this is uncalled for. Consultation is a forum for various stakeholders come together to brainstorm and reach consensus on issues. It is not a platform to discredit someone openly. We should not go into personal attacking. We should be polite and considerate in bringing out concerns although it might be with high dissatisfaction tune. Confronting and making others angry will definitely not helping us to find an amicable solution. It will aggravate the situation further. Perhaps we must have organised the course on alternative community disputes resolution too.

Public participation is also about right content and context. Some argued about short notice attending the forum and some talked about the timing. Perhaps it is also good to look into appropriateness of time, venue, arrangement and preparation for the dialogue.

Despite the many complaints, it is a good start leading to participatory planning and good local governance.