Yesterday, the City of Kuala Lumpur has turned into the City of Mud once again, no thanks to the Ministry of Federal Territories and the Ministry of Environment and Water for its failure to address the flash flood problem. 

Enough is enough! The December flood last year was supposed to be bad enough, but yesterday’s flood was even worse. And for this to happen within the span of less than four months, raises concerns to KLites. 

Every time when there is a heavy downpour for not even half an hour, KLites are already not spared of the massive floods. Their cars will have to go through a major repair. Homes will have to be cleaned up. For each flood, loss of properties come out to be in the millions. 

There is no explanation given by the authorities to date on what could have caused the frequent floods, despite billions of Ringgit already spent on flood mitigation, deepening the river, SMART Tunnel, just to name a few. Each time, before work is done, there is a big launch but the problem remains unsolved.

The two ministries must answer the public outcry on whether any holistic environmental impact assessments on the entire Klang Valley had been carried out. 

A heavy downpour is not considered an environmental disaster. However, the flash floods caused by a heavy downpour is in itself a huge disaster to KLites. For this, we want the Minister of Federal Territories, Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim and the Minister of Environment and Water, Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man to explain to the flash flood victims why the two ministries have not been effective in preventing flash floods, or if all the flood mitigation projects have been successfully carried out. 

As a city, what we need is sustainable development, not just more condominiums, office towers, shopping malls and skyscrapers. If these projects continue unabated, it will only worsen the situation. The people who ultimately have to bear the consequences are the people living in the city of Kuala Lumpur.

Lim Lip Eng

MP for Kepong