Author: CHUNG Yoon Ngan
Date: 09-30-11 19:46
A reminiscent event as a Government Servant
I always blame the environment making us like what we are. I did not know
I was a bi-linguist plus a bit of Malay until I completed my tertiary education
in Australia and returned to Malaysia to serve the Malaysian Government.
I was posted to Public Works Department (PWD, now JKR) at Brewster Road,
Ipoh to be in charge of the Water Supply Section. My duty was to administer
the collection of the payments of water rates for Perak State by the water
consumers.
There were practically no Chinese literate officers in the Departments.
One day, there was a dispute over the disconnection of the water supply
to a Chinese Primary School in a Hakka new village called Bemban New Village
(民萬新村) near Batu Gajah.
http://yn.chung.id.au/BembanNewVillage.jpg
Folks from the whole village, the village headman, 羅友山 (Luo Youshan),
the school principal (I forgot his name) and all the teachers wanted to
march to Ipoh to demonstrate against PWD. They wrote Chinese letters to
PWD. There were many Chinese officers in the Department, but none of them
could read or write Chinese. Someone told the State Engineer that I read
and write Chinese. The State Engineer was so excited because at last someone
in the department could reply the Chinese letters that sent to the department.
I solved the primary school's letters.
It all started like this.
During the Emergency the British Colonial Authorities relocated more than
half a million Chinese squatters, including my family, into new villages.
The government would supply the villages with free tap water (stand pipes)
and electricity which the villages had to pay for a minimum charge. When
a Chinese primary school was built for Bemban New Village the Government
asked PWD to install a stand pipe for the school which meant free water
supply for the school.
Many years later, when I was working in PWD in charge of the State Water
Supply, due to vandalism, the governors of the school decided to put up
a wire fence surrounding the school and locked up the gate in order to protect
the school property. Even though the water was free to the school, PWD wanted
to know how much water that the school had consumed monthly. It was for
the purpose of estimation. The meter readers from PWD could not read the
water meter in the school which was fenced and the school gate was locked,
every time when they went to the school to read the water meter. So the
meter readers disconnected the water supply to the school. That was to say
that the 400 to 500 students in the school were without water everyday.
I was surprised to find out that none of the village folks knew that the
school was receiving free water supply since it was built.
Folks of the whole village went to complain to my father, since I was in
charge of the State water supply, [It was the Chinese custom that if one
could not tackle that officer one should go and complain to the officer's
father.] My father rang me and told me that he was with the village folks
and asked me to do something quick otherwise his reputation would suffer.
My father was a well known man in Pusing. My father told me that the school
governors
were going to PWD to confront me [Oh my God. Even my own father was against
me]. Luckily my father did not come with them, otherwise I might have to
resign.
Several school governors charged into my room and my door guard, a Silkh,
and the Malay security officer could not stop them. They came into my room
abusing me in Hakka dialect and calling my nickname. The Superintendent
Engineer, an Indian, could not understand what the school governors were
shouting about. I translated to him. Immediately he called for the head
meter reader to explain why the school water supply was cut off. The head
meter reader did not know and he rang Batu Gajah for explanation. I told
the school governors to go back to their village and I would go down there
with the head meter reader to see for ourselves. Many of the school governors
knew me since I was born in Kampong Sayap and studied at the Siputeh Chinese
Primary School.
I went with the head meter reader by the PWD van. On the way we stopped
in Batu Gajah to pick up the meter reader who had disconnect the water.
When we arrived at the school the folks of the whole village came out to
confront me abusing me and calling either my nickname or the son of my father
whose tin mine was not far from the village.
I explained to them that the school should not have fenced up the water
meter which belonged to the Government and the Government was giving the
school free water. Then the villagers realized that they were wrong and
they stopped abusing me and kept quiet. I told my meter to installed a new
water meter outside the fence and I told the school governors to take responsibility
of the water meter and we left. Since this incident I became very popular
among the villagers as the son of my father but not Chung Yoon-Ngan.
I searched from the PWD record for this standpipe and it revealed that the
school standpipe was installed in 1950 when the New Village was established.
Since then the school did not pay a cent for the water the school children
used.
The case was reported in all the Chinese newspapers, but not the English
newspapers. The case was also reported to the State Secretary (the head
of the Perak State government servants).
Posted to asiawind.com
By CHUNG Yoon-Ngan (鄭永元)
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