Floods: Johor govt wants more SWCorp assets deployed to help clean-up works in Batu Pahat

Johor Housing and Local Government Committee chairman Datuk Mohd Jafni Shukor (left) standing in front of a pile of flood debris at the temporary dumpsite at Jalan Shin Lee, Kampung Cina Chaah, Segamat.

JOHOR BARU: The Johor Government has sent a request to the Local Government Development Ministry to help mobilise more Solid Waste Management and Public Cleansing Corporation (SWCorp) assets for Batu Pahat.

Johor Housing and Local Government Committee chairman Datuk Mohd Jafni Md Shukor said more assets are needed to remove the flood debris in the district to be sent to the Moakil landfill.

“At present, SWCorp has five 16-tonne lorries and 13 roll-on, roll-off (Roro) lorries with a capacity to carry one tonne of waste each.

“It would take a lorry 50 minutes to travel from Yong Peng towards Moakil and about one hour and a half from Batu Pahat to the same landfill.

“So from the collecting until the off-loading process (of rubbish), each lorry will only be able to make three trips a day.

“We would need urgent help from the ministry to deploy more SWCorp assets to help with the post-flood clean-up in the district — at least twice the amount of vehicles that we have right now,” he said when contacted Tuesday (March 21).

The Batu Pahat Municipal Council and Yong Peng District Council have also prepared temporary dump sites (TDS) in their areas so that clean-up operations would be faster.

“There are 45 housing areas in Batu Pahat with 6,920 premises (houses and shop lots), while Yong Peng has 34 housing areas with 2,513 premises.

“Each of these premises is able to produce between 1.5 and 3 tonnes of waste consisting of furniture and electrical appliances.

“This does not include over 100 traditional villages in the nearby areas, which are divided into seven sub-districts (mukim), namely Simpang Kiri, Simpang Kanan, Linau, Tanjung Sembrong, Sri Gading-Ayer Hitam, Chaah Baru, and Sri Medan,” he said.

The clean-up operations had only started on March 19, as the situation in the district only improved after 20 days since March 1, he added.

At the moment, there are four TDS in Batu Pahat and five TDS in Yong Peng, located on government-owned land.

“So instead of running around collecting rubbish and travelling to Moakil, we have divided our assets between two teams: collection from the source (premises and villages) and delivery (from TDS to Moakil).

“For the traditional villages, both local councils have appointed contractors to collect the rubbish from the villages and deliver it to the TDS,” he explained.

Mohd Jafni also shared that the Yong Peng District Council had also requested an additional allocation of RM1mil from the disaster fund, while the Batu Pahat Municipal Council had requested RM800,000.

“The allocation is needed to help cover the cost of the post-flood clean-up operation.

“The state government has recently approved RM700,000 to the Segamat Municipal Council and Labis District Council for the clean-up operations in the Segamat district,” he shared.