By Parliamentary Opposition Leaders, DAP MP for Petaling, Lim Kit Siang on Saturday, 10th January 1982:
Call on Selangor State Government to provide basic social infrastructures of piped water, sanitation and low-cost housing for the 6,000 people in Kampong Medan Jaya, Batu 8 ¼, Jalan Klang Lama
Accompanied by the DAP State Assemblyman for Kajang, Sdr. Liew Ah Kim, DAP Assemblyman for Kuala Kubu Baru, Pan Su Peng, and Petaling Jaya DAP branch officials, I visited the Kampong Medan Jaya Batu 8 1/4 , Jalan Klang Lama area, yesterday, (near Guinness Stout factory)
In Kampong Medan Jaya, the residents, who are mostly low-income people from the working and lower government class, live without the basic social infrastructure of adequate piped water, sanitation and hygienic living condition.
Although the Selangor State Government had announced that the government would provide stand-pipes in the ratio of some 50 houses to one stand-pipe, there are only four stand-pipes in Kampong Medan Jaya although there are some 600 houses there.
The Selangor State Government should urgently look into the matter of providing adequate number of stand-pipes for Kampong Medan Jaya.
The people in Kampong Medan Jaya also complain of frequent flooding in the kampong. According to the kampong representatives, Sdr. Ahmad bin Awang and Sdr. Mohd. Nor Rashid, the houses would be flooded with some 1 to 2 feet of water with an hour’s rain. This is because the drains are very shallow and have never been deepened and widened. As a result, a small rainfall would bring in all the dirt and refuse into the houses. In normal times, the drains of stagnant water pose a great health hazard.
Kampong Medan Jaya is in the Sungei Way State Assembly constituency in Selangor, and being one of the Barisan state constituencies, is entitled to $100,000 if minor development projects a year. The least the people in Kampong Medan Jaya expect is that they should have received their proper share of minor development projects form this $100,000 a year allocation for the widening and deepening of drains, and the installation of adequate stand-pipes in the area.
I would urge the Barisan Assemblyman for the area to give serious attention to Kampong Medan Jaya for the provision of basic social infrastructure of adequate piped water supple and sanitation, and the deepening and widening of drains.
During my visit to Kampong Medan Jaya, I received complaints of the Kampong Medan Jaya people about political favouritism by the PKNS in the eviction of squatter houses there and in the allocation of PKNS housing units.
In Kampong Medan Dalam for instance, to make way for PKNS housing , while the quatters there had to demolish their houses and be temporarily emplaced in the PKNS Rumah Panjang, where they had to stay for a period, before being allocated low-cost PKNS units. Three Kampong Medan Dalam UMNO officials however received ‘special treatment’. They did not have to move to the Rumah Panjang like the ordinary Kampong Medan Dalam people, but were straightaway allocated to PKNS housing units. Furthermore, after allocation to PKNS housing units, their they did not have to demolish their squatter houses, but rent them out instead, while other had to demolish their houses to make a wa for PKNS development projects. The three UMNO officials concerned are the Ketua UMNO Kawasan Medan, Ustaz Razak, the Timbalan UMNO Ketua, Alias Wahab and the UMNO Setiausaha, Ismail Md. Isa. This is most unfair and discriminatory and the Selangor State Government and the PKNS should give the people of Kampong Medan a satisfactory explanation for such double standard. Otherwise, the DAP Assemblymen would raise this unjust matter in the next meeting of the Selangor State Assembly.