Chief Secretary Pays Surprise Visit to MPAJ

The Sun, 2 November, 2007.
By Giam Say Khoon

KUALA LUMPUR : Chief secretary to the Government Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan paid a surprise visit to the Ampang Jaya Municipal Council (MPAJ) and found its public delivery service below expectations.

He visited the council yesterday with Tan Sri Yong Poh Kon, his co-chairman in Pemudah, the special task-force set up to facilitate business.

He told theSun he and Yong visited the council unannounced as they wanted to see how the local authority performed and whether there was any need for improvement in its public delivery service.

During the visit, he found that some service counters had long queues while others were just serving one or two customers, as the computers were not compatible to perform other duties.

Mohd Sidek said he told MPAJ president Mohammad Yacob he wanted all the computers at the counters to be integrated with the same software, so that all the counters could multi-task and serve all customers.

He told MPAJ officers that he wanted to look at the people's feedback inside the suggestion box placed at the council. However, they could not find the officer who has the key to open the box.

Mohd Sidek managed to retrieve two suggestion papers from the box, one of which was undated and another was dated Sept 19.

“This shows that no one has opened the box for nearly one-and-a-half months”, he said, adding he was annoyed with the attitude of MPAJ.

He asked the MPAJ president to personally read the suggestions from the public daily, to actually know what was happening in the council.

He said the visit was the first one conduct by Pemudah.

“There will be more surprise visits in future”.

According to a MPAJ statement, Mohd Sidek agreed to adopt the council as anak angkat (adopted son) after the visit. He also told the council to:

• Improve the suggestion form management system at the service counters;
• Set up multi-tasking counters at the One-Stop-Centre (OSC); and
• Create a tasking system in the OSC's development application unit.

MPAJ public relations officer Norhayati Ahmad said the council is committed to improve its customer service. It will;

• Collect the suggestion forms at the counters daily and reply in three days;
• Set up the multi-tasking counters by Dec 1; and

•  Replace the tracking system in the OSC with the system employed by the Peninsular Malaysia own and Country Planning Department.

“We also welcome the public to suggest to us how we can improve our public delivery service by contacting our president or deputy president Abdul Hamid Hussain.”