Education of the State of Affairs in Flora Damansara – Part II

Apologies for the grand sounding title 

Anyway, please read-up the news article published by Sinar Harian on 29th July 2009, an online version can also be found here – http://floradamansara.com/2009/07/29/jmc-perjelaskan-masalah/

No offense intended to the Sinar Harian reporter but some details were a bit off in what I would say fairly accurate journalism.

All these outcry about our ‘Sinking Fund’.  As I revealed in my previous posting – http://maulvi.floradamansara.com/2009/07/15/education-about-flora-damansara/ – when JMB took over the Flora Damansara and appointed Pama Services as the new management company, the inherited coffers contains exactly RM 0. ‘Telur Ayam’.  We also inherit debtors list and creditors list.

So, our ‘Sinking Fund’, from RM 0, now stands at about RM6,500.  The figure quoted in the article – RM1,600 – is actually what we collected for the month of June only!

On Maintainance Fee, every month, we should be collecting around RM170,000 but we are collecting only at about RM20,000 or so on average every month from the current billing!

Since day 1 of Flora Damansara, accumulating outstanding dues over the years stands at RM2.2 million! A mind boggling figure!  900 of the owners from 2,400 owes above RM1,000 and these figure alone is at a staggering amount of RM1.8 million!  Try and stretch your imagination, with residential units maintenance fee of RM50 for the low-medium cost units and RM70 for the medium cost units, how many months are your arrears?

More accurately, how many years are you in arrears?

Please do not insult everyone by saying that – these are arrears from the previous management days.  We would gladly overlook this if only we are not inheriting the previous liabilities.

Case in point – TNB Arrears

This one is clearly from the previous management days.  Can we ignore this? Of course we can.  Can TNB disconnect electricity to Flora Damansara common areas?  Sure they can too! And they did! Who suffers? No electricity to power the Lifts and Water Pumps.  The residents of Flora Damansara.

Another Case in Point – Syabas Arrears

This one is also clearly from the previous management days.  Can we ignore this? Of course we can.  Can Syabas disconnect water supply to the whole of Flora Damansara?  Sure they can too! If they did? Who suffers?  The residents of Flora Damansara.

All the facilities that are in state of disrepair and lack of maintanence, clearly from the previous management days.  Now dropping dead like flies one-by-one.  This is not to mention those ad-hoc repairs that we have to undertake on those poorly designed engineering works.

All this requires money.  No money, no talk.

Now, if only those equipments and facilities are handed over in tip-top condition, better yet brand-new, I don’t see why not we can just start a new leaf. Of course, after that you wake-up!

All this breakdowns are happening at all times and hours.  Some of the repair works were undertaken round-the-clock.  Service must be restored as soon as possible (the acronym here – ASAP).  Then to ensure that no further breakdowns, round-the-clock monitoring were undertaken.  All this to ensure service remain available.

Some of you guys who seems to delight in taking shower or doing their laundry at 3.00 AM, take note that the management have people monitoring the water pumps and the tank levels.  Just to ensure there’s no problem whatsoever.

All this too incur costs in terms of overtime wages to the technicians employed by the management.

Yes, the state of disrepair is that bad in Flora Damansara.  Can we fix this?  Yes we can.  When?  Of course it takes time, especially since funds are scarce.  We have to prioritize.  If only the funds are available, we can always flood money in order to make the problem go away.

Can we?  Easier said than done.

To those who said that overtime wages are not justifiable, of course, we could always disallow it, then all problems that occurs in Flora Damansara can and will only be rectified during office hours.

Acceptable?  Not!

Right now there are so many incidents and most of them lapse beyond normal working hours.  Repair works has to continue until complete.  You cannot stop working and continue the next business day, not on crucial services.

All these facilities that should have been properly maintained which were not previously are all due to lackadaisical attitude of owners in not paying the maintainence dues on time previously.  Now when we have problems from the past coming up biting us in the arse and we need funds to fix them.  These funds too have to come from the past – arrears that must be settled.

Oh yeah! Management’s office hours is also a bit slightly off in the Sinar Harian’s article -

Normal Office Hours
Monday – Friday : 09.30am – 05.30pm
Saturday : 10.00am – 03.00pm

Extended Office Hours
06.30pm – 08.30pm 2nd and 4th Weeks (Tuesdays and Thursdays)

http://floradamansara.com/management/

For those who have queries on their water bills, please check with the management.  There’s always possibilities of erroneous metre readings (Human Error), faulty metres or simply leakages undetected somewhere.

Maulvi Bakar – Block H