Businessman sees red over stinking mess

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A FAULTY pipe under the road along Lorong Tunku Abdul Rahman has caused a sewerage tank of a shoplot to overflow on to the streets, causing much distress to road users and tenants of the building for four months.

Pedestrians heading towards Jalan Masjid India could be seen jumping across puddles of filth with a look of disgust on their faces.

“My business has been slow and many of my customers complain of the smell and the dirty water,” said tenant Atan Maarof.

Atan, 49, a traditional medicine practitioner said he had complained to the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) as well as Indah Water Konsortium (IWK) several times. However, both parties have not taken his complaint seriously.

Smelly: A pedestrian looking at the puddle of filth.

“They keep passing the baton around and both said the problem does not lie with them so what can I do?” asked Atan.

He said he would pour buckets of water onto the contents that flow out in order to keep his area as clean as possible.

Atan also said he believed the pipes underneath the road was clogged, forcing the water to backflow and spill out of the sewerage tank in the shoplot.

According to the owner of the building Kamal Kishor, he has lodged several complaints with the IWK and DBKL but both the agencies decline to pursue the matter.

“I believe the pipe outside my shop has either collapsed or blocked so I lodged complaints with both the departments,” Kamal said.

He believed since the pipe concerned leads outside his building, the responsibility of fixing it would fall on IWK.

“They (IWK) say it is not under their purview and it should be mine,” added Kamal.

He added that in the past few months, IWK workers would use a high jet power pump to push the blocked contents down the pipe.

This, he said, would ease the congestion for awhile.

When contacted, IWK’s head of communications Amin Lin Abdullah said the pipes were indeed the responsibility of the owner.

“We have gone to the site again and confirmed that the sewerage problem is within the premises,” he said.

Hence, the premises owner or tenant would have to undertake the repair work, which is probably caused by broken pipes.