KUCHING: To achieve Kuching city’s status of being clean, beautiful, safe, smart, and sustainable, it has to be done with the help of the public, said Kuching North City Commission (DBKU) mayor Datuk Abang Abdul Wahap Abang Julai.
He said that smart and sustainable are the two elements added in the Clean, Beautiful and Safe (CBS) City Plan which was launched recently by the Chief Minister during March’s ‘Old Kuching Smart Heritage Agenda (OKSHE) 2019’ in an exclusive sit-down interview with New Sarawak Tribune yesterday.
“We came about with these two elements because we have cooperated with University Technology Mara (UiTM) whereby they have conducted surveys and introduced to us the smart and sustainable concept which was included in our five-year CBS plan to fine tune the previous plan,” he noted.
He further stated that he is proud that they are able to have 49 voluntary registered Friendly Neighbourhood (KJM) to be part of their committee in carrying out this plan.
“We started this initiative with zero budget and with this current committee, we are trying to bring in the private sector to temporarily help out and source out our funding from within.
“We have also collaborated with the State Multimedia Authority (SMA) and OKSHE even though it is not part of our initial plan but with this collaboration, we can instill the smart and sustainable concept to the city and the public.
“In March, we managed to help SMA in getting the public to use Sarawak Pay and have successfully achieved their 5,000-user target.
“By having them utilising smart technologies, we can have smart facilities in which the community themselves also needs to be smart in using the current technologies, thus we will work closely with the state government in trying to make Kuching have its smart community as technologies nowadays are a necessity and not just a gadget,” he said.
Abdul Wahap noted that with the introduction of the electric bus in Kuching, they will soon be using a card that can be used on anything and anywhere without having to take out physical cash, ushering the community into a smart digital era.
“On the topic of sustainability, we feel as if it’s our responsibility to act on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals which includes sustainable cities and communities, affordable and clean energy, quality education and so on.
“Look at New Zealand, they have prestigious landmarks or areas that they want to keep without any developments in the area. What they are doing is keeping the prestige areas clean and allow a limited number of people to enter just to admire it.
“In Kuching, we are going back to heritage, explaining that we have about 30 different races and are able to live peacefully which needs to be an example to the world that here, no matter what race you are, we can still live peacefully without any discrimination,” he said.
