Read Your Itemised Mobile Phone Bill Carefully

A businessman came to me with a box of bills which he has kept since 2005 as proof of how he was scammed by a legal service provider! He had paid more than RM4,000 unknowingly for SMS he received which he did not subscribe to in the first place.

Mr. Tan said the SMS were from companies which deal in offers including football matches, marketing products and some lewd ones on massage services.Tan travel frequently overseas for business and thought that the high bill was due to the raoaming service. After a month of staying put in Kuching, he was amazed at how high the bill was. A check through his itemised bill showed that out of the RM469 paid, RM257 went to the SMS external provider charges.

I called that daylight robbery. Tan went to the DIGI service provider to lodge a complaint and as usual, he was pushed from one branch to another. However, he was persistance and got an agreement that the SMS would stop. Tan was told that each SMS cost between 30 cents to RM5 and even if anyone were to delete the SMS without reading, they are still paying money to the company, the external provider.

Such pratice is not only peculiar with DIGI, but all mobile phone services. I think it is high time the government introduced an anti-scam law like those in Australia, China and United States.

We are always taken for a ride for all sort of scam and this one is worst as the government is allowing it to happen right under their nose. The service provider should take responsibility for the whole scam. They should have blocked the SMS from going out if they were serious in curbing such scam. I wondered if they were getting some kind of commission out of the whole thing.

Mr. Tan said while talking to a staff at DIGI, one supervisor even offered to pay RM100 as compensation to him. The amount is too little compared to the amount already forked out by him in the last few years.

MCMC should do something about it before more people are conned. Imagine the number of 29.62 millions mobile phone users in the country. If each company can collect RM10 a day, the amount collected each day would be 296.20 million ringgit. And for whose benefit, the poor common people? Or the rich cheating on the poor?

Collapsed Jetty at Sungai Apong.

Finally, the offending jetty is removed.

Waking up early is a routine for me. I prefer to do things early as I believed that the earlier one starts a day, the faster and more tasks could be done that day.

I met up with my comrade at our DAP Service Centre at Chonglin Park. We proceeded to Jalan Simen, Pending and headed towards the Sg. Apong jetty which was used as a loading and unloading of Land and Survey boats. I don’t like to critise for the sake of criticising but I don’t understand why a government department could move and left behind broken pieces without even bothering to clear up, in this case, a collapsed cement jetty.

The collapsed jetty had been there for decades and I came to understand that previously, SUPP was approached by the Sg. Apong fishermen to help removed the collapsed jetty. Nothing was done. Year after year, the poor fishermen had to put up with propeller damaged and dented body on their fishing trawlers as the bridge was almost in the middle of the narrow river.

The fishermen had enough problems created to their livelihood and having this one added was too much for them to bear. When they first came to me sometime in October, 2008, I wrote a letter to the controller of the Sarawak River Board on October 4 seeking their assistance to remove the broken jetty.

During the May, 2009 DUN sitting and last DUN sitting in November, I brought up the issue again asking the authority to do something. Finally, the authorities get their foot moving.

The Sg. Apong fishermen called me early this week to convey their thanks. At long last the broken jetty is in the progess of being dismantled. I am happy for them and when I arrived at the jetty, indeed the workers were doing their work. One of them chatted with me and said they could only work when the tide is low. He told me that it was the Drainage Irrigation Department who asked them to clear the obstacles. I think he must be puzzled why I gave him a big grin. I remembered hearing from residents in Sg. Apong that the SUPP had tried to get credit by telling the people that they, (SUPP) had engaged workers to demolish the collapsed jetty!

What a way to get credit. I believe that if the SUPP bothered to go to the ground to help the people, they could get their credit due to them. It is a shame that they could stoop so low to get a few praise that way. SUPP thinks that the people are so stupid that they can be fooled around.

The whole issue has shown that the relevant government departments can indeed do their work if they are given a little push. Those managaing government departments should appreciate problems brought about by inaction on the part of the department itself when it is adding to the daily woes of the local people. The department in fact should be proactive, and act to do things for the people instead of waiting for them to be urged to do so.

Turtles, the Victims of an 'Egg-Stra' Law

Source: Malaysianmirror

KUCHING - Lawmakers not only defend the rights of fellow citizens. Sometimes, creatures other than humans. Pending state assemblyman Violet Yong is adamant about defending the turtles. She is aghast at a show of ignorance to the plight of turtles by some 'dignified' diners who feasted on the eggs of these aquatic species early this year.And she became more furious and disgusted when, recently, Sarawak Forestry Corporation controller Len Latiff advised the public against selling or buying of turtle.Early this year, an English daily showed guests at a police function at Batu Kawa consuming a plate of turtle eggs.

The VIP diners

Among those who attended the dinner were Internal Security and Public Order director Husin Ismail, Sarawak Commissioner of Police Mohmad Salleh, general operations force head Law Hong Soon and heads of departments in the police force."The expose by the daily raised the spectre of whether the application of law has been differentiated between the ordinary people and those who are supposed to protect the law," said Yong, who lodged a report on the matter at the Simpang Tiga police station on March 15, a few days after the offensive dinner.She also raised the issue in the May sitting of the state assembly, only to be told by state public utilities minister Awang Tengah Ali Hasan that there was insufficient evidence to proceed with the case."Insufficient evidence even with photos shown? What more do they want? No evidence? My foot!” said Violet."What a sick joke. And here we have Len asking the people to report immediately to the police if they come across people buying or selling the protected turtle eggs. "Is there two set of laws here, one for the people and one for the authority?”Len had told reporters that he was investigating the issue, adding that humans should not be selfish and cause harm to wild life,including turtle eggs, which are protected under the Wildlife Protection Ordinance 1998."I feel furious and disgusted when I read Len's statement," Yong told Malaysian Mirror.

Case being investigated?

"He should not have opened his mouth at all. What he said makes him look so ignorant. "The story of the police taking the turtle eggs was out on the front page of the English newspaper."I lodged a report and there he was telling reporters then that the case was being investigated." Saying that Len is playing both “Cowboy and Indian” in the issue, Yong said the police should have come clean. She is concerned on how the police are going to nab future offenders as the latter might turn back and tell them that their bosses had also consumed turtle eggs and was never punished!“I am sure the law breaker will tell the police who nab him that it is a case of the pot calling the kettle black”.

The police, she said, had kept an 'eerie silence' on the issue.

A black mark

"For them to break the law blantantly by consuming a protected species and keeping quiet about it, I wonder how much faith the people have anymore in them," she said.The incident, she pointed out, left a black mark on the country as Malaysia is a signatory to the Memorandum of Understanding on Asean Sea Turtle Conservation and Protection.Yong said she would not let the matter rest - for as long as the subject of turtle eggs is mentioned by any authority - until justice is served. - Malaysian Mirror

Last Updated on Friday, 18 December 2009 13:41