Wake up, local governments !

(Published at Malaysiakini )

Two legislations were tabled in Parliament, namely the Solid Waste and Public Cleaning Management System Bill, and the Solid Waste and Public Cleaning Management Corporation Bill.

The government would also set up a supervisory department called the National Solid Waste Management Department. The local authorities would be given monitoring and enforcement duties to assist the corporation in its operations.

The move of the federal government to take over the management of solid wastes and public cleaning from the local authorities has proved that the local government has failed in carrying out their duties. In view of the local governments’ dysfunction, by taking over the power of local governments, federal government will only undermine and damage the function of local institutions, which could have involved more people and community participation in the solid waste management. Are there no other solutions to improve the performance of the local governments? Why restoring the local government election which could encourage people to take part in the local governance has never been taken into consideration?

If local governments continue to be indifferent, negligent and irresponsible towards the 3R (recycle, reuse, reduce) campaign or any other efforts to manage solid waste launched by the Ministry, the RM1 billion start-up grant to the waste management corporation will be a waste of public funds.

Under The Local Government Act 1976 PART IX which clearly states that the scope of authority of the local government is to establish, maintain and execute various sanitation services, the removal and destruction of , or otherwise dealing with, rubbish, litter, animal carcasses and all kinds of refuse and effluents.

There are 145 Majlis Perbandaran dengan Pihakberkuasa Tempatan (PBT, including Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur) all over the country, including 31 Majlis Perbandaran (MP) and 114 Majlis Daerah (MD). Due to the lack of effective policy implementation and enforcement, recycling campaign has invariably failed to produce the desired results. To make matters worse, even though the local government fails to co-ordinate with the federal government, the former does not have to bear or face any responsibility.

In 1991, at the UN Conference on Environment and Development, Chapter 28 of Agenda 21 stipulated a mandate for all local governments and authorities to prepare a “Local Agenda 21”. Local governments in each country are to carry out a consultative process with their population and achieve a consensus on a ‘Local Agenda 21 Plan’ for their communities. The LA 21 preparation processes, in principle, are participatory in nature, resulting in new commitments by local governments and their communities to improve and extend urban services in a sustainable way. Malaysia is one of the countries which support and implement the Local Agenda 21.

In parallel with the Local Agenda 21, Malaysia launched campaigns like National recycle campaign and Love Our River campaigns in 1993. However, after 14 years，there is still no sight of an efficient and effective waste recycling and separation policy.In 2006, the recyling rate in the country was only 4.5%. In March 2007, Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Azmi Khalid announced that “Love Our Rivers” campaign to clean up our rivers has been branded a failure after the government launched the campaign in 1993; increasing pollution had rendered 17 of Malaysia's 186 river systems so toxic the water is unsafe for humans to touch. Where are the assessments or evaluation for all these failures in local governments?

Waste recycling, reuse and reduce (3R) are very important strategies in managing solid waste management. Countries which have achieved high recycling rates usually have strong implementation and enforcement ability that are being carried out by an efficient, transparent, accountability local government as well as people's a voluntary participation.

Korea is the country which has a significant economic growth, and at the same time, it has reached the recycling rate of municipal waste from 26.2% in 1996 to 44% in 2002. Their landfilling decreased from 68.3% to 41.5%. Crucially, local elections are implemented in the country. In Korea, local governments carry out their own environmental mission and those delegated by Ministry of Environment including:

• Establishing measures to preserve the local environment;

• Collection and disposal of municipal waste, etc

Local governments play a very important role in recycling. Local governments are expected to create a more facilitative environment where deeper stakeholder participation can take place. They should be given the power to grant waste management concessionaires by open tender and deal with different category of waste according to the local conditions and diversity. Instead of giving concession contracts to the few that are unable to deliver effective services, why don’t we encourage more waste management companies with different initiatives and abilities which can foster local economy?

Community participation is necessary if we want a success recycling result. Only people themselves know what they consume, what they discard. From there, a local government decides what kind of recycling facilities are needed in different areas such as housing, commercial or industrial area. The community will then need to decide what they need to reuse or reduce. Recycling industry can be fostered by government’s incentives. The Federal government should enhance their capacity through providing financial subsidiaries and incentives as well as technology support if necessary.

It is worrying that now the housing and local government minister is given power to prescribe charges for solid waste management and to authorize service providers to collect the charges. Such centralized administrative system is often fatigued and lead to over-concentration of power, money, people and information among central or national authorities. In many cases, local regions are being stripped of their resources and vitality.

Decentralization is proposed as a way for greater subsidiary and localized decision-making amongst communities and local governments. This is to better define the roles and responsibilities amongst the various levels of governance, for reduction of national governmental control and diversified government services that match needs of local conditions.

There is a growing consensus among all levels of stakeholders that solutions for global environmental problems can only be found at the local level; through local actions that are taken by local stakeholders. This has put the focus on local governments to take the initiative to develop inventive policies, programmes and projects in order to protect the local environment in a concerted and coordinated manner - that would ultimately lead to encouraging global impacts.

In this respect, restoring Local Government election is the first step to an effective solid waste management.