Be thankful for S'gor initiative, EC told

Given that the Election Commission (EC)  had previously admitted to facing resource constraints, it should be grateful to the Selangor government for conducting the ‘Selangorku Bersih’ campaign, said Menteri Besar Abdul Khalid Ibrahim.

“(The EC) was the one which said it has no capacity and capability (to verify voters’ status. As we’ve helped) them out, they should thank me,” he told a press conference today.

Both the EC and Selangor Umno deputy chief Noh Omar had told Selangor voters not to cooperate in the campaign, on grounds that the state government has no authority to verify the identity of voters.
Khalid said the government is doing the exercise so that eligible voters on the EC’s electoral roll will be able to vote.

The campaign was launched by Khalid recently, mobilising civil servants and Village Development and Security Committee (JKKK) members to clean up the electoral roll.

They will conduct house-to-house visits to verify the identity of voters registered at the addresses and raise objections should they fail to locate the voters.

Meanwhile, Khalid also refuted the accusations made by Selangor BN coordinator Mohd Zin Mohamed yesterday that the state has itself to blame for the state’s high non-revenue water (NRW).

Zin had said the state’s NRW, or the water that is lost before reaching consumers, was high because the state had frozen the water concessionaires’ capital expenditure since 2008, which led to the concessionaires not being able to replace damaged pipes.

Responding to this today, Khalid said the state will only need to fork out allocations for the capital expenditure should the concessionaires be involved in the water restructuring exercise as stipulated under the Water Industry Restructuring Act 2006.

“Now it is not under the state government’s purview to give allocations to the concessionaire,” he said.