Alor Setar now...

Been a year plus since PAS took over Kedah...

So what is new? For starters, the Star was dimmed out and replaced by a Setar, a tree with fruits which have bitter and sourish tastes.. well that's one change that came with a new gahmen! Don't understand why they keep picking on the 'E', trivial matter it is.

Life in Alor Setar continues. About the only blimp that has hogged the limelight was the demolishing of the illegal abbatoir in Kg Berjaya... which was politicized. DAP was dumb enough to pick it up as a cause. The abbatoir has been running illegally for the past 30 years! It was illegal to start with and even though a piece of land had been earmarked to build a proper abbatoir, no one wanted to assume responsibility of building it. So, the illegal one continued to operate even though it was against the regulations. Pity those villagers who had to to bear with it. And of course 'BN papers' took the opportunity to widen any cracks that appeared. That's Malaysian style.... issues are always politicized along racial lines.

Life goes on pretty much the same. Except that if you look around carefully enough, you'd notice that the City workers are not as efficient as they used to be... but the rot actually set in even before this gahmen took over. Grass is not cut so regularly now.

Rubbish is left uncollected for up to a week in some places. It's not so bad in the city area but move to the peripheral areas and you'd see piles of rubbish that can only mount so high because they are not collected as regularly as they used to be. Now the mayor says he wants Alor Setarians to become whistle blowers and report those who litter. I find it funny cos the City Council seems inept now. So if we blow and the rubbish is still not collected, would it make any difference?

We were driving through Bukit Pinang town one weekend and the rubbish along the roadside was piled up like a small bukit. Bukit Pinang would be more aptly named Bukit Sampah! It was the same in Pokok Sena. Small hills of uncollected rubbish sit by the road, a real sore to the eyes... not to mention the health hazard that they pose.

Word in the kopitiam has it that this PAS MB is not a very approachable person. But I see posters of his pictures everywhere. His 'eyes' seem to be looking everywhere but he doesn't seem to notice all these things. One of my friends asked the City workers how come they're not collecting rubbish as oft as they used to. The answer? They have more area to cover now and less rubbish trucks to do the job. And don't know whether the tender for the rubbish collection has yet been renewed it seems. First it was slated for August. Then I heard they're going to sign it in September as they were unable to get all the workers to sign the papers. Same workers, different company!

City Council seems less than efficient. The decorative lights put up along the roads seem to be falling apart. You have lights dangling precariously above. I dread to be under one of those lights when they drop. I wonder whether we can sue the City Council if one of their lights drop on our cars.

Alor Setar used to be a quaint town when I first came. I remember being impressed by its cleanliness and safety. Of course both have been seeing steady deterioration over the years... I wish the authorities would buck up. So, for me the ordinary folk on the road... pot holes, uncut grass, rubbish everywhere... these are after all, issues that are important to us, the rakyat. The PAS gahmen ain't doing a good job in making sure that the City Council sees to these things...