City Hall's apathy shocking

The Sun 21/04/2006

IT was a humiliating lesson but one that was necessary to get the message across, after kinder reminders fell on deaf ears.

Almost half of the Kuala Lumpur City Hall's building was sealed for two hours on Wednesday, essentially because the local government had failed to do its job and subsequently, failed to ensure the victim and his family who were affected by that were given their due compensation.

What happened to Putera Marzuqi Hue could have been avoided. The boy, who was two years old when the accident happened last year, suffered a cracked skull and swollen brain after he fell through a gap in the broken iron railing on the fourth floor of the Sri Melaka flats in Cheras.

Even more appalling was that residents at the public flats had been asking City Hall over the past two years to fix the broken railings in the area. It took Putera Marzuqi's fall to get the local authority on its feet. A day after the accident contractors began fixing the railings.

Too little too late though, for the boy and his family. It was also not the first time public safety was put at risk because of inconsistent or poor maintenance of public facilities on the part of local authorities.

Putera Marzuqi's father, Harts Abdullah Hue, sued City Hall for failing to maintain its facilities and for not paying heed to the Sri Melaka flats residents' complaints, which he claimed had resulted in the accident.

The Kuala Lumpur High Court awarded putera Marzuqi and his family about RM500,000 in damages and costs in March. When City Hall or its insurance company did not pay up, the boy's father obtained a writ of seizure and sale from the Kuala Lumpur High Court to seal the City Hall building, which he did on Wednesday. He stopped only after he was finally given the toque for the amount due to him and his family.

A drastic measure indeed, and it is unfortunate that the public should even have to resort to such means to elicit the necessary response. The incident serves as a stern reminder to all local authorities that similar consequences could befall them should they fail to do their job. They could spare themselves plenty of legal hassle and public humiliation if they do their jobs - including services outsourced to third parties - well.