Dear KL residents,

Isn’t it a farce that KL residents do not have a say as to how our city is being governed?

Our local authority, Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL), governs us on a daily basis in how we live our lives - from food hygiene at food outlets, parking matters, roads, to regulating development. Yet, we are not privy as to how they manage or spend our money. There is zero meaningful consultation with the residents, and development approvals are a secret until it is too late and often bulldozed through.

Look at what happened to Bukit Gasing and Bukit Kiara; they failed to act in the interest if the residents. If DBKL is not playing its role to regulate development in the interest of the residents, having the local authority as the final approving body will only be a waste of our money at best, and at worst, serve as an opportunity for corruption, that in turn effects our environment and lives.

In addition to all that, DBKL wants to increase the assessment rate, some rumoured to be three times the previous amount. Only an unthinking brick will not know how this is unreasonable. But do they care? After all, they are not accountable to the residents, but to the federal government that appoints them.

Most major cities in the world have elected mayors. That we do not elect our own, and have allowed them to run in secret for so many years has made us all fools. Let this recent increase in assessment rate exercise casts a spotlight on DBKL and the mockery that the whole system has made us out to be.

We need to work the system, use existing mechanisms to engage with our local authority and participate as a citizen rightly should, but at the same time recognise that what we have now breeds impunity, zero accountability to KL residents, and a local authority that operates from a black hole of secrecy in which we have no right to know how billions of our money are being managed.

Those that stand to gain as gate-keepers to matters such as valuable development approvals, billions of DBKL budget, would only be too happy if we are only busy with longkang matters; so long as there is no transparency and mayoral elections, KL residents will always be at the raw end of the deal. Keep in mind that land is becoming scarce in KL. Sooner or later, a system that favours profits without being answerable to the people, will end up biting us all in the back.

We need to not only react to bad developments around us - although that is a necessity - but to also start getting organised and to demand that our local authority be firstly transparent, as Petaling Jaya residents have done in Selangor, and work towards at having mayoral elections.

Demand for a referendum on the powers of the FT minister and DBKL, the need for mayoral elections, and support initiatives and campaigns with this aim.

This is our city where we live; let the local authority that governs us be transparent and be accountable to us, not to a federal government voted in by people from afar.