UMNO-BN admits flash flood(environmental damage) due lack of monitoring of construction sites?

We just heard of the about 11 lives lost at a construction site in Penang due to a land slide on a hill-slope development project. Now, we hear that persons in Klang Valley are suffering because of flash flood caused by another construction project...

It is a sad day, when an UMNO-BN government Minister comes and tells us, that this may have not happened if the current law and standards had been complied with ...but, that it would not apply for this construction project because permission was granted before the new law came into being...

Much of the environmental damage caused by inadequately-monitored construction projects occurred before new housing laws came into effect, Natural Resources and Environment minister Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said on Wednesday..Wan Junaidi said the monitoring of construction sites come under the amendments made to the Housing Development Act, which took effect in Aug 2015..."It was very easy to see that there was no proper dredging of debris from the construction site (next to the Federal Highway), which led to mud and debris clogging the culvert, and there weren't sufficient culverts,"said Wan Junaidi....

What nonsense? When new laws, standards and requirements are made into law - it updates the inadequacies of old standards - so, naturally it must apply to all construction projects still ongoing - it is absurd to suggest that these new laws/requirements do not apply to construction projects approved before the coming into force of the law. More so, when it is a law about 'monitoring construction sites'??? Remember new standards and requirement are usually put in place to protect environment and human beings...

Now, in the case of the 'flash floods' - do not forget that DBKL (the local government of Kuala Lumpur now appointed by UMNO-BN Federal Government) is at fault - Najib Tun Razak must take responsibility for these flash floods...just like Lim Guan Eng need to take responsibility for the recent deaths of construction workers in Penang...

The recent flash flood which took place in Kuala Lumpur.

By ARNAZ M. KHAIRUL

November 1, 2017 @ 2:20pm

BANDAR SUNWAY: Much of the environmental damage caused by inadequately-monitored construction projects occurred before new housing laws came into effect, Natural Resources and Environment minister Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said on Wednesday.

He was commenting on the incident of flooding along a 1-kilometre stretch of the Federal Highway here on Monday, which left Shah Alam-bound traffic caught in a snarl which lasted five hours.

Wan Junaidi said the monitoring of construction sites come under the amendments made to the Housing Development Act, which took effect in Aug 2015.

"It was very easy to see that there was no proper dredging of debris from the construction site (next to the Federal Highway), which led to mud and debris clogging the culvert, and there weren't sufficient culverts," said Wan Junaidi.

He was speaking as a panellist at the Sustainability Summit Asia, organised by global business magazine The Economist.

"But this project was approved in 2008, thus it was not subject to enforcement under the Act which took effect after Aug 2015," he said.

Prior to the amendments to the Act, Wan Junaidi said project approvals were entirely under the jurisdiction of the local council, in this case, Kuala Lumpur City Hall.

At the forum, Wan Junaidi also lamented the fragmented enforcement of environmental controls and laws, which leave efforts to ensure environmentally-sustainable developments difficult and completely at the discretion of state governments.- New Straits Times, 1/11/2017

Construction project implicated in Federal Highway flood approved prior to Housing Development Act amendment