KL folk still confused over assessment rates

PETALING JAYA (Feb 10, 2014): Confusion is still rife in regard to assessment rates that residents in Kuala Lumpur are required to pay as authorities mull over their objections and queries.
Bukit Bandaraya Residents Association president Datuk Mumtaz Ali told theSun that the hearing for the objections conducted by Kuala Lumpur City Hall since January were unsatisfactory.
"The hearing is a joke. What engagement and dialogue is the government talking about?
"The hearing has been nothing but a monologue session; a forum where officers from City Hall explain the announcement," he said in a telephone interview yesterday.
He questioned the idea behind a forum instead of interviews with the residents when 90% of those invited for the "so-called hearing" are yet to be heard.
Mumtaz pointed out that numerous memorandums and letters from residents, in addition to the individual complaints, have yet to get a response.
The issues raised were on the projection of rental values, discrepancies in assessment values for houses in the same row or area and a public forum for residents to raise their woes.
He said it was obvious that there were no serious thoughts given in the implementation of the assessment rate hike, and no proper review was done on the values before the announcement was made.
The announcement on the assessment rate hike in November last year has created an uproar from residents in the city. Residents' associations (RA) have complained that an official reply from City Hall is yet to come.
Bangsar Baru Residents Association president Datuk George Joseph said the hearing was "extremely disappointing".
"The hearing was supposed to (include) interviews. The residents who sent in objections were called in for the hearing and many of them, who are senior citizens, had a lot of trouble getting to the venue, in this case from Bangsar to Cheras.
"It was a total waste of time because many of the concerns raised were not answered. City Hall appointed a member from its advisory board and the person had no idea of what was going on," he said.
Both RA presidents said that there have been several cases where residents from the same area or row of houses received assessment rates that are vastly different from each other despite having the same structure.
City folk have complained about the proposed rate hike, which is between 100% and 300%, and tens of thousands of objection letters have been submitted to City Hall since last November.