Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) has been questioned for having a budget larger than the whole of Selangor, when most of its key services have allegedly been outsourced.

“It doesn’t make sense that DBKL has a RM2.44 billion budget for 2015, which is slightly higher compared with Selangor’s budget of RM2.42 billion, when Selangor serves a population 3.2 times larger than Kuala Lumpur,” said Segambut MP Lim Lip Eng.

Lim said Selangor also serves an area 33 times the size of the federal capital.

Noting that most of DBKL’s services have been outsourced, he asked what the city council’s job was.

Lim opined that DBKL has become the country’s biggest “outsourcing agency in Malaysia”, this being evident in how waste management had been outsourced to Alam Flora, the sewerage contract outsourced to Indah Water, public toilets regulated by the Urban Well-being, Housing and Local Government Ministry, as well as other contracts.

“Is DBKL’s job so miniscule that its role is reduced to changing road names and taking action against the homeless?” he quipped in a statement today.

DBKL raised a furore earlier this year when it announced a revision of land assessment rates of over 100 percent, with some going above 200 percent.

While the rates were eventually reduced following intense protests, it again raised national indignation when it attempted to ban soup kitchens in the city centre to get rid of the homeless and beggars.

Lim also said it was not surprising that RM1.044 billion which is 64.2 percent from DBKL’s management budget of RM1.63 billion for next year - would be spent on the services of the various contractors and sub-contractors.

“Apart from the monthly free car-bicycle ride, I want (Federal Territories Minister) Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor to explain to the city dwellers what exactly is DBKL’s job, since most of its services have been outsourced,” he said.