By: DR ONG KIAN MING
Former Deputy Minister of Education, Wee Ka Siong, was quoted as having said, on the 20th of March, 2014, regarding the not yet constructed SRJK(C) Kajang Utama/Kajang 2:
“Until now, the project to build the new school cannot begin despite approval from the Federal Government many years ago. We have applied for land title for the school in April 2012. However, till now, we have received no news,” he said. “We hope the state government will put aside political differences and let education be their priority.”[1]
I am disappointed that the former Deputy Minister and current MP for Ayer Hitam would a totally false statement. Whether he made it out of ignorance or whether he was lying outright, I do not know. But what I do know is the following. According to documents provided by the Hulu Langat Land / District Office (See Appendix 1), the application for the land title for the aforementioned school was received in May 2012. The Selangor state government through the ‘Majlis Mesyuarat Kerajaan Negeri’ approved this application on the 13th of March 2013. The notice to pay the land premium (Notice 5A) was issued on the 1st of April, 2013 and the amount of RM1369 was paid by the federal government on the 14th of June 2013.
Once the premium has been paid, the federal government already has the ownership of the land and can already proceed to submit an application for a Development Order (Kebenaran Merancang / KM) to MPKJ for the proposed school. Once the KM is approved, then the submissions of other documents such as the building plan and technical plans can proceed.
However, until now, the Ministry of Education has not submitted any application for a Development Order to MPKJ for SRJK(C) Kajang Utama/Kajang 2! Without this application, any construction work on this school cannot even start.
Hence, it is not true that the federal government has not received any news since 2012. The fact of the matter is that the federal government has been neglecting its duties by not submitting any application for a development order after paying the land premium on the 14th of June, 2013. Instead of pushing the blame to MPKJ and to the Selangor state government, Wee should instead ask the Minister of Education why he hasn’t given the instruction for the Ministry of Education to submit development order for this school that has been promised since 2012.
In a site visit I made together with my colleagues from the DAP on the 21st of March, 2014, not a single brick had been laid in the site allocated for SRJK(C) Kajang Utama / Kajang 2. We urge the BN government to keep its promise to build this school and not use the results of the Kajang by-election to ‘punish’ the voters in Kajang by not building or delaying the construction of SRJK(C) Kajang Utama/Kajang 2.
#Dr Ong Kian Ming is MP of Serdang