By Lee Shaw Wei & Tania Matu
KUCHING: Democratic Action Party (DAP) Sarawak urges the Local Government ministry and local authorities to step up efforts in tackling local issues.
Its chairman Chong Chieng Jen highlighted this during his daily press conference held at DAP headquarters here yesterday after he had visited a fire incident which happened at an old shophouse in Third Mile Plaza, Sungai Maong, Kuching earlier.
“The fire incident has exposed the shortcomings of the local government and local council in managing their affairs which is putting people’s lives and properties, on top of the firefighters’ lives in danger.
“I talked to the shopkeepers and fire victims when I reached there and found out from them that the fire fighters could not find the water hydrant and had to go across the road to find one.
“As they were trying their best to put out the fire, there were at least four leakages due to the distance of the fire hydrant and therefore lowering the water pressure and diminished their firefighting effort,” he said.
He said one of the fire victims has allegedly told him that there was actually a fire hydrant nearby but it was buried below the road surface in a drain.
“The fire victim told me that the fire hydrant was buried below the road surface after multiple road resurfacing works were done over the past few years.
“One of the residents told me that he has brought up the issue multiple times to MPP chairman Lo Khere Chiang over the years that the fire hydrant needs to be maintained but it had fallen on deaf ears.
“Earlier when the firefighters came and could not find the aforementioned fire hydrant, one of the fire victims had to hack the ground and remove the concrete to enable the firefighters to use the fire hydrant.
“Valuable time was wasted when every second counts during emergency like this,” exclaimed the Stampin incumbent MP.
He clarified that he was not trying to blame the local council for the fire incident but instead raising the peoples’ concern.
“Do not get me wrong. I am not trying to blame the council or the government for the fire (incident).
“I am raising my concern and hope the local council and local government can step up their efforts in managing the local affairs,” he reiterated.
