The Star, Wednesday February 29, 2012

Fines for illegal renovations on hold

THE Kajang Municipal Council has delayed issuing fines for illegal house renovations until March 31 to sort certain problems.

Councillor S.T. Chandra Mohan said 22,913 of the 75,000 houses checked had done renovations and 3,864 carried out without a permit.

He said the fines was a penalty for late submission of plans.

The penalty varies according to the plan fee which is determined by the size of renovation work. Offenders can be fined between five and 20 times the fee.

“There were a few problems when the fines were imposed. Some told us that the illegal renovation was done by the previous owner.

“We need to sort out these problems before issuing fines,” he told reporters after the council’s full board meeting.

Council president Datuk Hassan Nawawi Abdul Rahman said there were eight residents duped by Indonesian contractors who told them they had obtained the necessary permits, which were actually fake ones.

Hasan also said the Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) factory could not cope with the amount of waste and landfill operators were looking for another site to build a sanitary landfill.

“Of the 500 tonnes of rubbish generated daily in the municipality, 30% cannot be processed.

“The landfill operator is considering buying 4.86ha of land near the RDF,” he said.

Councillor Steven Chan highlighted the issue of stray dogs caught by dog catchers hired by the council that were locked up in a lorry since Saturday with inadequate food. The dogs have since been fed.

The term for councillors end today but Hasan said the council had yet to receive the list of new councillors.

“Maybe it will be finalised during next week’s meeting.

“It is still business as usual. There will be no problems while waiting for the list to be finalised. We were without councillors for three months after the last general election,” he said.