The Selangor government, through the Selangor Economic Action Council, approved RM5 million to tackle Klang’s flash floods which require RM1.2 billion to overcome, the Selangor state assembly was told today.   

Local government, research and development committee chairperson Ronnie Liu Tian Khiew said the RM5-million allocation was used for nine flood mitigation projects, seven of which would be completed this year and two by March next year.  

“Based on studies, flash floods are caused by heavy rain, tides, rain water combining with high tide, Klang’s sloping terrain and being lower than the sea level as well as human factors,” he said in reply to a question from M Manoharan (DAP-Kota Alam Shah).   

Manoharan had wanted to know when the state government would resolve the frequent flash floods problem in Klang.           

Meanwhile, Menteri Besar Abdul Khalid Ibrahim said the services and manufacturing sectors were among those which contributed the most to Selangor’s economy.  

He said that from the time the opposition pact began administrating Selangor in March 2008, the state’s revenue had increased from RM1.5 billion in 2008 to RM1.7 billion in 2012 up to Oct 27.  

“Selangor’s highest revenue receipts come from non-tax revenue such as land premiums. From the RM1.7 billion revenue in 2012, almost RM1 billion came from non-tax revenue,” he said when replying to a question from Dr Shafie Abu Bakar (PAS-Bangi).   

When responding to a question from Badrul Hisham Abdullah (BN-Port Klang), Abdul Khalid said the state government had only attained a 30 percent information reachability level though its two official channels, TV Selangor and SelangorKini.

He said it was confident of attaining up to 60 percent information reachability in the future through allocations from the state government to widen information activities in the state.

- Bernama