When the hills were found barren around the Bukit Cahaya Seri Alam Agricultural Park , the Selangor Menteri Besar Dr Mohd Khir Toyo put the blame on the Shah Alam City Hall. He said the local government should be held responsible for giving out approvals to various developers without proper monitoring.

While one may argue that the MB cannot put the blame squarely on the local government, it does demonstrates that the local government is indeed holding a lot of power in many areas.

They are in charge of roads and traffic, sewage and drainage, street lights, gardens and fields, stadiums and sports complexes, hawker centres and markets, parking and rubbish disposals and development projects and licencing.

According to a survey conducted by Transparency International (Kuala Lumpur Chapter), local municipalities have become the most corrupt government agencies. Many local government officials are on the take simply because they have so much power at their disposal.

At times, it becomes a matter of life and death when the local governments fail to provide clean and efficient governance. Some 25 people have died of dengue this year simply because drains were clogged, and rubbish and empty containers were not collected in time by local governments.

The Highland Towers tragedy where two residential blocks of apartments collapsed in Ampang, Selangor is another classic example of local government failure. The tragedy would have been avoided if the Ampang Jaya Municipal Council had strictly followed the guidelines set out for hillside development.

Things can go very wrong with a local government that goes without any checks and balances. Recent events have also shown that no one can depend on state government leaders to provide these checks and balances. They are only good at pointing fingers when things have gone sour.

It also demonstrates the need for returning political power and democracy to the people through the restoration of local government elections. So long as officials at the helm are appointed by their political masters and not elected by the people, they will think that they are not

accountable to the people.

They will continue to listen to the politicians instead of listening to the woes and grievances of the ordinary people. Projects such as the Broga incinerator , the landfill at Carey Island, the excessive number of housing projects around the Templer Park and so many others would not have gotten approvals if local government chieftains believe that they must also be accountable to the people.

Forty years have passed without local government election. Most of the local councils are rotten to the core. The DAP has started a nationwide awareness campaign to demand for the third vote, i.e. to restore elections for all the councils right from the cities to the villages.

These elections will certainly help to return power to the man in the street and push the overall democratisation of our nation to a greater level.

It's time to stop the rot.

The writer is DAP's international secretary and NGO bureau chief.