Millions of ringgit worth of DBKL ‘River of Life’ beautification assets in peril

The Star

Underutilised structures along the Brickfields’s part of the Sungai Klang riverbank under the River of Life project are now sheltering vagrants and druggies, prompting security measures by City Hall.   WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

Transcript

00:00 Many facilities under the River of Life project in Brickfield, Kuala Lumpur are underutilized

00:08 and their condition are deteriorating.

00:11 Recent checks showed that at least four structures and some public toilets along a 3-kilometer

00:16 footpath along the Sungai Klang river bank stretching from the Central Market Area to

00:21 the Mid Valley Shopping Mall are being used by vagrants and drug addicts as sleeping quarters

00:27 at night.

00:28 Originally secured and locked, these facilities were forcibly opened and used as shelters

00:34 by the homeless.

00:36 In a bid to prevent further encroachments, City Hall has stationed security guards to

00:41 protect these assets around the clock.

00:46 At a structure near the Jalan Sultan Sulayman Traffic Light Junction, no proper signage

00:51 was installed and it was used by workers to store their brooms and sometimes used by the

00:57 public to park their motorcycles.

01:00 The security guards said their job was to ensure no one sleeps there or damage the property

01:05 and added that during the COVID-19 pandemic, homeless people used to sleep there.

01:10 There are also other structures designed as so-called guiding galleries for people to

01:14 rest or seek information, but joggers and cyclists say they rarely stop by as they are

01:20 not safe.

01:21 The River of Life project comprises 11 precincts stretching from Titiwangsa Lake Gardens in

01:27 the north to Mid Valley in the south.

01:30 This includes a 10.7-kilometre stretch along the Klang and Gombak rivers and it was developed

01:35 to support recreational activities along the rivers such as walking, jogging, cycling and

01:41 picnicking.

01:47 Since the launch of Phase 1 of the project in August 2017, there has been no designated

01:52 ministry or agency to operate and maintain the sites.

01:56 City Hall said it was aware of the present state of the vandalised structures and added

02:00 that the project implementation and building maintenance department will conduct repair

02:05 works on the structures.

02:06 [no audio]

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