Local authorities should be sincere, proactive in handling people’s issues

I RECEIVED a call from my immediate neighbour on Monday, July 12, at around 5pm, seeking help as there was a beehive a few rows away from our houses in our township.

I called our city council MBPJ and was informed that a beehive within the premises of a house did not come under their care or custody.

I was shocked to hear this and fortunately, my daughter asked me to call 994, which is the number for all kinds of emergencies.

I was lucky that my called was answered instantly. The counter service staff was fast, accurate and polite, whereby my call was forwarded to an agency under the

Department of Civil Defence.

With the information I gave, an officer reconfirmed the details and assured me that action would be taken soon. I was very relieved and quite impressed as well.

I called the houseowner and told him that action would be taken soon.

A day later, I called the beehive houseowner and was told that three people came from the department of Civil Defence Unit at 10pm on Monday and they did not do much as they said that there were not that many bees in the beehive.

The owner of the house was extremely scared as his daughter had been attacked by the bees.

So, I called 994 again and repeated the same complaint to the counter staff.

The call was transferred to the same department, and I told the person attending to me that the Civil Defence Unit personnel came and left without any firm action being taken to remove the beehive.

The officer was very kind and told me that they would send the team to resolve the issue, as they said that bees are dangerous. I was convinced that action would be taken.

On Wednesday morning, I was informed that six Civil Defence personnel came on Tuesday at around 11pm and they climbed the roof with a ladder, which was short, and then left, saying that they did not have a proper ladder and as such asked the owner to contact Bomba to get further assistance.

I was totally shocked and dumbfounded by this response and unpreparedness by the Civil Defence Unit.

They were at the scene on Monday and Tuesday and they said they didn’t have the proper ladder to handle the beehives.

Moreover, there were six staff attending to the issue and yet could not resolve it, as they came unprepared with no proper equipment.

My questions are as follows, how is it that the local council MBPJ was not prepared to tackle this beehive issue?

We are paying taxes to the city council, so why can’t they handle this?

MBPJ can afford to build towering buildings as their secretariat and has more than 20 officers going around our city daily to check on poor hawkers, and confiscate their food and fruits just because they don’t have a licence to trade.

They are already having a hard time trying to obtain the licence as most of the time their applications were rejected by MBPJ. I have spoken to them personally.

How can the Civil Defence staff be so illprepared to handle a beehive situation?

Why are they not equipped with the proper gadgets and equipment to help people in distress?

Bees are dangerous and they can kill too! Imagine, two futile trips to a house with beehives.

To top it off, six staff came to attend to a beehive, where only three were working while the rest were probably busy with their handphones.

I think we must be serious in providing quality service to the people.

The local authorities or a dedicated government department like the Civil Defence Force must be sincere, proactive and well equipped to handle any issue and ensure that people are relieved of their distress, more so now when the pandemic is seemingly unstoppable and just waiting to infect anyone and everyone.

I sincerely hope MBPJ and the Civil Defence Force will respond to this feedback and assure us that we are not wasting our tax monies on some inefficient department which could not care less for the people.