KL residents want City Hall to show how money is being spent By JENNIFER GOMEZ December 04, 2013 Just some of the residents groups in Kuala Lumpur that have taken their protest to the City Hall headquarters recently. File pic, December 4, 2013.Just some of the residents groups in Kuala Lumpur that have taken their protest to the City Hall headquarters recently. File pic, December 4, 2013.A group of lawyers will be taking Kuala Lumpur City Hall to court to compel it to open up its books and show the public how taxpayers money had been spent in the past 10 years. This is in relation to the local authoritys move to raise assessment fees for all property owners in the city. Kuala Lumpur City Hall has stirred a hornets nest by seeking to raise assessment fees, now they are being taken to court, said Chang Kim Loong, the National House Buyers Association honorary secretary. We also want City Hall to show their budgeted expenses for the next 10 years. If they are asking us to pay more, they should show us how they have been spending the money all this while. Chang said the case will be through a declaratory order to be filed at the Kuala Lumpur High Court next month. City Hall, its advisory board and the mayor will be named as respondents. Chang said that so far, they have 80 ratepayers that will be part of this public interest litigation, with the help of nine lawyers. Before the end of this year, the legal team will also challenge the revision notices sent out to the 507,800 ratepayers in Kuala Lumpur with new valuation amounts when it comes into effect on the last day of the year. Chang is also calling for more lawyers and forensic accountants to join the battle against City Hall, saying that with more legal help on the team, they could organise more groups of ratepayers in the legal challenge. City Hall had started sending out notices to all property owners in Kuala Lumpur informing them of the proposed hike in the property valuation. The notices, however, stated that if there are objections to the proposed hike, property owners must register their objections with City Hall before December 17. The public had been outraged by what they complained was an exorbitant increase in assessment fees. City Halls defense was that it had not increased the fees in 21 years. Local government legal expert Derek Fernandez had previously said that City Hall was not allowed to spend any money unless budgeted for. As such, he added that it was essential that they open their budget to public scrutiny in order to justify the need for additional funds derived from rate revenue and how it is to be used to provide better services. Fernandez had also said that failure to do this would make it difficult for the local authority to justify the need to increase rate revenue by revaluation of the annual rental to derive more assessment income. themalaysianinsider/malaysia/article/kl-residents-want-city-hall-to-show-how-money-is-being-spent
Posted on: Wed, 04 Dec 2013 11:04:31 +0000
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