“It needs to be remembered that City of Kuala Lumpur (KL) comes under Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur (DBKL) which is only a local government body and its rates are for providing local government services only which are enjoyed almost exclusively the people of KL. That is the basis anyway for the rates of local government bodies.
The Federal Territories Ministry is responsible for Putra Jaya, Labuan and also KL. Though there is geographic overlap in the case of KL only, (there is none in the case of the other areas), and more significantly, none in the case of services. The FT Ministry being responsible for the nation’s capital and other territories, is funded by Parliament and its expenses are provided for in the annual, national budget.
In other words, the expenses of DBKL proper only may be recovered from KLites. It is clear from the items mentioned by the FT Minister to justify the increase that some of these things are not for the benefit of the people of KL only particularly the highways. Irrelevant things have been taken into account.
This principle is observed by the Constitution in the formula for making capitation grants with respect to roads-federal and state and the latter are said to be those that join places within the state only and therefore enjoyed more by the people than those from outside. Such a distinction is to be made in the case of purely local government services and those to be provided by the state government and those by the federal government.
The DBKL budget needs to be re-examined in the light of the above principle; such a failure to observe the distinction is one of principle and may be a sure ground for challenging the budget in Judicial Review proceedings in the Courts of Law, proposed against the rate hikes.
It would help if the FT Minister’s comments were more clear as to what part of the FT he is talking about, better still if he stayed out of the matter as a whole; as a federal minister his concerns are inevitably wider than those of local government.”
HBA’s Full statement here:
DBKL assessment hikes – KLites right to be heard individually
