River of Life project doomed to fail from day one, says NGO

 

FMT:

River of Life project

doomed to fail from day

one, says NGO

Danish Raja Reza-11 Jul 2024, 08:00 AM

Save Kuala Lumpur chairman Mumtaz Ali says the project’s narrow scope undermined its objectives.

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Save Kuala Lumpur chairman Mumtaz Ali said there was unequal prioritisation of the project’s goals, with too much focus on the commercialisation of the river at the expense of its clean-up.

PETALING JAYA: The RM4.4 billion River of Life (RoL) project to rejuvenate the confluence of the Klang and Gombak Rivers was doomed to fail from the beginning, an NGO said.

Save Kuala Lumpur (Save KL) chairman Mumtaz Ali said the project’s scope was too myopic, focusing on a small portion of the river system, which made it counterproductive to its main objectives.

“We had raised this issue from the beginning. The rivers start uphill in Gombak, flow through KL, and then to Klang. If you only address the KL portion of the system, how successful can you be in achieving the desired goals?

“If you want to undertake a serious project such as this, you need to address the river from upstream to downstream to ensure effectiveness and that the money is well spent,” he told FMT.

According to the 2024 auditor-general’s (A-G) report, the RoL project, which has faced more than eight years of delays, is unlikely to be completed this year.

The report said that as of July 2023, eight out of 159 RoL-related projects were still ongoing, with completion progress ranging from 21% to 97.3%.

The RoL comprises three components: river cleaning, river beautification and commercialisation and tourism, none of which has been fully achieved, according to the report.

The audit found that only 79.4% of river beautification works have been completed, and only 50 out of 296 sewage treatment plants rationalised or upgraded.

Mumtaz added that there was unequal prioritisation of the goals, with too much focus on the commercialisation of the river at the expense of its clean-up.

“The project focussed on making attractions on the riverbanks but did not address the core issue of flood elimination, which would benefit the rakyat.”

The Save KL chairman urged the federal and Selangor governments, and the Federal Territories department, to work together and reassess the project, highlighting persistent flooding further downstream in areas like Klang and Taman Sri Muda.

He called for those responsible to answer for wasting public funds, while demanding a serious review of the entire development “before spending another sen” on what he said was a “vanity project.”

Meanwhile, Bukit Bintang MP Fong Kui Lun said one of the project’s shortcomings was its short deadline, exacerbated by multiple delays.

He said improving the river’s water quality would inherently make the Kuala Lumpur city centre more attractive, fulfilling the tourism objective of the project.