YONG TECK LEE ABUSED THE LAW?

By : DAP MEDIA

MANY people had criticized Yong Teck Lee who came out personally to protect his party’s yellow sign board of ‘Sabahtv.net’ to be taken down by the enforcement unit of DBKK.

This also brought along a commotion and big row with the enforcement unit of DBKK and the police. A fire and Rescue department sky-lift vehicle was also deployed to take down the illegal sign board, which was later stopped by Yong himself.

They have created traffic jam in the Borneon Center and caused much inconvenience to the general public. This is totally uncalled for because it is just a small matter over a sign board.

Edward Ewol Mujie, the Sabah DAP vice chair heard people saying that it is the law that we are more concerning about. If the sign board is wrong, unlawful, and without proper permit and approval from the authorities, then it is deem to be illegally erected and placed.

It is no difference whether the person is a commoner or a political party. What is illegal shall be taken care of by the law. We need law abiding citizens who follow the rules and regulations, and not those who challenged the laws.

The people said they felt sorry to see when SAPP turned out in full force to defend their sign board which is to be taken down by the DBKK enforcement unit. They said Yong being an ex-state chief minister, ex-Minister of Local government and ex-Minister of Finance before, and he is also a lawyer, and he should know the law that he cannot erect a sign board without proper approval and permit from the authorities. In this case, he had totally abused the law and taking matter into his own hand. The worst part is that he continued to challenge the power of the authorities.

Edward being an ex-executive of DBKK said the normal procedure of erecting any signboard is that the erector will have to submit to the various authorities concern the application prior to the erection.

Any such signboard erected without permit and approval shall be taken down without having to issue notice and the action can be immediate, and the cost shall be charged to the erector. Ignoring the instruction to take down may end up oneself in the court of laws.

The particular section of the law is stipulated in the “Advertisement By-law 1983, section 3 and 38”. In this case of the SAPP signboard, as according to DBKK, they have the right to remove it without serving any notice, and the 14 days notice did not apply at all.

The approval shall come from the Dewan Bahasa approving on the wordings, DBKK engineers to certify the safety and its licensing department to verify the charges on advertisement.

JKR, Bomba and Police will checked on the suitability of the location of erection to avoid any potential danger arising. In the past, sign boards had been blown by strong wing and fell on to cars and people.

Edward said in some cases DBKK may choose to overlook and allowed to pass them through without taking action due to the nature and position of the sign board, but this one involving SAPP is too obvious and is a high profile case, therefore DBKK left with no choice but to take action sternly.

It is a fact that if SAPP have applied for a permit to put up the sign board, SAPP might be granted the approval without much difficulty, but the point is that they did not apply and take things for granted.

Edward advices that it will be useful to put in a simple application to DBKK for any signboard or bill board to be put up to avoid being taken down by the authorities.