BANDAR SUNWAY: Much of the environmental damage caused by inadequately-monitored construction projects occurred before new housing laws came into effect, Natural Resources and Environment minister Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said on Wednesday.
He was commenting on the incident of flooding along a 1-kilometre stretch of the Federal Highway here on Monday, which left Shah Alam-bound traffic caught in a snarl which lasted five hours.
Wan Junaidi said the monitoring of construction sites come under the amendments made to the Housing Development Act, which took effect in Aug 2015.
"It was very easy to see that there was no proper dredging of debris from the construction site (next to the Federal Highway), which led to mud and debris clogging the culvert, and there weren't sufficient culverts," said Wan Junaidi.
He was speaking as a panellist at the Sustainability Summit Asia, organised by global business magazine The Economist.
"But this project was approved in 2008, thus it was not subject to enforcement under the Act which took effect after Aug 2015," he said.
Prior to the amendments to the Act, Wan Junaidi said project approvals were entirely under the jurisdiction of the local council, in this case, Kuala Lumpur City Hall.
At the forum, Wan Junaidi also lamented the fragmented enforcement of environmental controls and laws, which leave efforts to ensure environmentally-sustainable developments difficult and completely at the discretion of state governments.