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THE Penampang Municipal Council (PMC) has thrown the book at tenants of Taman Suria Apartments for littering violations, with a total of RM5,500 in penalties collected from 11 of these individuals recently.

A spokesman for the agency said each of the litterbugs received the maximum compound which can be issued under the agency’s Uniform (Anti-Litter) By-laws 2010.

“We are coming down on hard on offenders as we are so fed up of being wrongly blamed, over and over again, for the garbage problems inside the property,” he said. 

“This has nothing to do with the Council. We are only liable for clearing from the bin-centre for the Apartments and this is done once a day.” 

He said the MC was supposed to be more mindful about any irregularities taking place on the grounds.

Two of the agency’s Enforcement staff caught the culprits red-handed disposing of their rubbish haphazardly during a random check on Wednesday night, according to him.

The spokesman said this was the second time over the past seven months which the agency had intervened in this manner.

“No one was compounded when our personnel went to Taman Suria in June last year.” 

He warned that legal proceedings could be initiated against those who repeatedly contravened the Council’s (Anti-Litter) By-Laws 

“Should they be found guilty in court, they face the possibility of having to settle a fine for as much as RM20,000, spend as much as one year in jail or both.”

The Council’s action this week was prompted by feedback from two members of the public about the garbage piling up in the common areas in parts of the property.

The first said apartment dwellers had no choice but to leave their bagged waste on some of the pavements due to the absence of bins near the individual blocks there.

“At one time, bins were placed near each of the buildings,” he said, “but they have long since been removed.”

The second voiced his disappointment about the pockets of rubbish strewn about Taman Suria, saying it was not only unsightly but did not bode well for the health of those living and working in the area.

“I can’t work out whom to blame for this situation,” he said. 

“The management company (MC) may be at fault for not doing enough to tackle this problem. It is either that or there may have been some breakdown in the Council’s collection.”

The spokesman refuted the suggestion that there might be some shortcoming on the part of the latter’s service.

He said a check of the agency’s records revealed that there had been no breakdown in this collection, according to him.

“Those living and staying on the property were meant to make use of the communal bins at the bin-centre. They are not supposed to just dump this rubbish on the pavements near the parking lots and under the palm trees growing in the common area.”

He said the MC was meant to tackle the latter problem.

“The company has to do more to do more to keep the common areas around the property clean, including removing any garbage which has been thrown in places other than at the bin-centre.

He said the firm had been “strongly encouraged” to crackdown on litter-bugs among its tenants and unit owners.

“We called on the MC to have their security guards keep an eye out for these inconsiderate individuals and deal with them accordingly. The company was asked to identify the ‘trouble spots’, where illegal dumps may have formed, inside the compound.”

On the mounds of garbage highlighted by the two Hotline readers, the spokesman said 12 of its staff went down earlier this week to take away the bits of rubbish.

He said two open trucks were deployed to assist them in this effort.

“The rubbish was cleared on a humanitarian basis as a ‘one-off’ help to the MC.”