‘NO MORE
City council has no problem complying with CM’s directive, says Melaka mayor
kelly.koh@nst.com.my
THE Melaka Historic City Council (MBMB) has frozen the issuance of licences for “family entertainment centres” since 2013.
Mayor Datuk Zainal Hussin said MBMB had no problem complying with the directive by Chief Minister Datuk Seri Idris Haron to stop issuing such licences.
“We are keeping tabs on existing operators to ensure they adhere to conditions in their licence,” he said after leading 40 department heads and councillors to sign a corruption-free pledge in Graha Makmur here yesterday.
The event was witnessed by state Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission director Abu Talib Othman.
Zainal said there used to be 17 family entertainment centres under MBMB’s jurisdiction.
“Following checks, eight have had their licences revoked for failure to comply. Now, there are only nine centres left under MBMB’s jurisdiction,” he added.
He said the licences issued were mainly for shopping malls where there were operators offering fun rides for kids and game arcades.
He said regular raids had been conducted with other enforcement agencies on errant centres.
“We have been conducting raids twice weekly with various agencies such as the police, the Customs and Immigration Departments.
“We can take action like seizing items, sealing off their premises or revoking their licences,” he said, adding that such actions were taken under the Entertainment and Locations Enactment 2001.
Zainal directed 13 department heads to hold individual pledges for all their 1,160 staff to ensure that the council was graft-free.
“From the lowest level of the hierarchy, such as the gardener, to the highest level, we want everyone to sign the pledge and this must be completed by month’s end.”
On a separate issue, Zainal expressed dissatisfaction over the level of cleanliness in the city.
He said the council would terminate the services of poor-performing garbage contractors.
“For this reason, we have hired three independent contractors stationed at three areas to remove rubbish not cleared by our own contractors.
“We will pay the independent contractors based on the weight of the rubbish collected, and deduct the salaries of our contractors for not collecting rubbish as scheduled,” he said.
He said although no MBMB contractors had their contracts terminated, the council would act if they failed to collect rubbish three times in a row.