During his working visit to his constituency yesterday, Permatang Pauh MP Anwar Ibrahim discovered there are houses within his area that do not have electricity.

He said he felt unhappy with the discovery and called on the state leaders to go to the ground to do more to help the people, and not just help their cronies or party stalwarts.

"On this I do not compromise," Anwar said when met by reporters in Kubang Semang, during one of the 11 stops he made on his Hari Raya Aidiladha tour in the constituency.

NONE The opposition leader said this when praising both the Penang and Selangor governments - led by DAP and PKR respectively - for having done impressively in terms of economic management, fighting corruption and being transparent as these are major issues of good governance.

However, leakages and problems in administration still existed and must be tackled effectively, Anwar admitted.

"Do you access or gauge the success of a state based on financial surpluses? Surpluses mean good in economic management," said Anwar, who was a former deputy prime minister.

"But when you have surpluses but have university students who cannot pay their fees, when kampung houses are in bad shape and have no electricity, then I say the state must go down and do more to help the people, not just their cronies or party stalwarts," he added.

Anwar said if states registered surpluses in their coffers, more must be done about distributive justice ( keperdulian rakyat ).

"Five years is enough to help resolve people's problems," he added, quickly saying that he was not criticising the two state governments leaders.

"How is Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng supposed to know that there are still houses in the kampung of Penang, without electricity? It is our duty to bring this up." the PKR supremo added.

"There should be a special task force set up to bring these problems immediately to the state executive councillors for quick solutions."

Anwar said he felt the same in Selangor when he hears about students not being able to pay their fees, especially those from state government funded Universiti Selangor, because only poorer ones go there.

However, the state at least provides RM1,500 to each student to ease their problems.

‘But the council head says everything is all right'

He lamented that every other day, his Twitter account is bombarded with complaints, about leakages or potholes on roads, yet the local council head says that "everything is all right".

"Are we expected to support the council then? No. I am not doing a public relations exercise for them," Anwar said.

"If the complaints (on my Twitter ) are only once or twice, they can be tolerated but this happens on a daily basis.

"My Twitter is turning into a complaints department. When I receive the complaints, I email them to the menteri besar's office for action. If it happens once, it is still all right. But 20 times? That is my point," he said.

Anwar said the people were telling him that he talks about Pakatan governments having money in their coffers but roads are not repaired and problems that affect their daily lives go unresolved.

"For example, in the case of potholes, if the roads cannot be tarred immediately, at least do something to improve the situation quickly.

"This is not about politics but about people who experience these problems daily. They knows how difficult it is," he added.