SIBU: It is important that Sibu Municipal Council (SMC) takes the lead on mitigating the effects of climate change because Sibu is the most vulnerable.
Its chairman Clarence Ting who made the call said the reason for this had to do with Sibu being more prone to floods because of rising water levels.
“We have the longest river in Malaysia … it is a blessing but also a curse for us,” he said when officiating at the SMC Innovation, Integrity Day cum Meet the Customers’ Day 2022 in Wisma Sanyan here on Saturday (Nov 26).
Ting hoped the council would come out with innovative ways to approach the climate change threat.
“As one of the initiatives, I am very happy that this year we will hold a seminar to talk about this.
“I attended the world cities summit in Singapore in July where they were talking about things that SMC and all the councils in Sarawak are not touching on – climate change.”
On sustainable development initiatives, he congratulated the council’s public health section, among others, for its ‘no plastic straw’ drive which he hoped would contribute towards a better Sibu.
He hoped other initiatives like the waste turning into wealth programme and household waste segregation would reduce waste disposal at its Kemuyang landfill which is supposed to last 20 years.
“We will need another new site in five years because it is filling up too fast and we have been told that we could expand the life span of our landfill if we do compaction,” he stated.
Touching on e-billing, he said he was all for it so as to change the way things are done in the council.
“I want to promote this e-billing but so far public reaction has been fairly poor because it has only reached 20 per cent. We hope that by year 2024, we will have at least 70 per cent of all holdings in Sibu to be on e-billing.
“l hope that our council will hold frequent customer days and go out to get people to register for e-billing,” Ting added.
Deputy chairman of SMC Bujang Zainuddin and the acting secretary Yong Ing Chu were among those present.
