The Padawan Municipal Council (PMC) wants to increase assessment rates by 1% from next year but an opposition party is unhappy about it.

Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) Sarawak has urged the state Ministry of Environment, Public Health and Local Government to reject outright the PMC application to raise the assessment rates in areas under its jurisdiction.

PKR state legal adviser and Stampin division chairperson See Chee How said in a statement today that the council should first make public its accounts "as it is accountable to all rate-payers residing and trading in houses and shops within its jurisdiction."

"The council's income and expenditure must be revealed to assure the public that there is no mismanagement or abuse of public funds which has led to the budget deficits," he added.

See, a lawyer, was referring to PMC chairperson Tan Joo Poi's announcement carried in the local Chinese media that the council needed to raise assessment rates due to its RM1 million budget deficit for the current financial year.

"If the budget deficit is a short-term financial setback, the council should turn to the government for a grant or allocation," he said, adding that "a raise in assessment rate should only be considered as the last resort."

The PKR leader said any hike in assessment rates will affect all owners of properties within the jurisdiction, adding to their financial burden.

Street lighting

"Likewise, any approval to raise rates to cover a council's budget deficit for a particular year should not be granted without due consideration as other city, town and rural district councils will most certainly emulate and follow suit, citing their budget deficits to justify a hike in assessment rates, See said.

Saying the proposed increase in assessment rates would be unjustifiable, he said Tan had revealed that the council had within this financial year approved projects involving the construction of 10,000 units of houses and shops and that the budget deficit is mainly due to its financial deficiency to provide street lighting to these new housing and commercial centres within its jurisdiction.

The council should know that the assessment rates to be collected from the property owners of these 10,000 units of houses and shops would amount to not less than RM5 million and could easily cover the purported budget deficit for street lighting which is a mere RM380,000, he added.

"The council chairperson appears to be misguided with the council's budget," See said, adding that "the rationale for the application to hike assessment rate is, at best, frivolous."