August 20, 2024
KUALA LUMPUR – One of the oldest mosques in Malaysia’s capital city and the river banks around it have undergone a radical makeover in recent years to beautify the heritage heart of Kuala Lumpur’s old downtown.
In the evenings, the riverbanks around Masjid Jamek are often covered in theatrical mist – hissing out from rows of pipes – and the river water is lit in a stunning shade of blue.
The riverbanks near another prominent landmark nearby, the Sultan Abdul Samad Building that used to house the offices of the British colonial administration, have also been rejuvenated.
The mosque sits at the meeting point of two major rivers, Gombak and Klang, and the area is reputedly where Kuala Lumpur – a “muddy estuary” in Malay – was born.
The rivers are among eight in the Federal Territory and Selangor that form the core of the ambitious River of Life (RoL) project that was initiated in 2011 to revitalise the waterways, with the aim of matching the success of Seoul’s Cheonggyecheon’s stream restoration project.
But while the impressive improvements are visible around the Masjid Jamek area, other areas along the riverbanks appear untouched though the project was launched 13 years ago.
“It’s not like in Melaka, where the river is a tourist spot. The River of Life project has been delayed for so long,” said a shopkeeper by the Central Market, located along the Klang River.
“They need to make it clean and have activities such as boat rides to attract tourists,” said the retailer, who declined to be named for privacy reasons.
“It’s disappointing to see how little has changed in the years since I first came here,” Ms Julie-Ann Sherlock, a travel writer from Ireland who first visited Kuala Lumpur in 2017 and spends a lot of time in Malaysia, told The Straits Times.
When launching the project in 2011, then Prime Minister Najib Razak said: “I visited the Cheonggyecheon River project in Seoul. The project is the best example of the transformation of a polluted and dirty river into a model river complete with beautiful walkways, bridges and fountains.”
The RoL was part of initiatives to clean up and beautify a 110km stretch of the national capital’s rivers and spur economic investment in the surrounding areas.
Unfortunately, despite RM3.9 billion (S$1.2 billion) spent on the project, it has faced over eight years of delays. And it will not meet its 2024 deadline to achieve its objectives, according to a damning report contained in the 2024 Auditor-General’s Report released on July 4.
Najib defended the RoL project in a Facebook post on July 16, saying it was 80 per cent completed in 2018, and that after his coalition was voted out of power that year, the project has progressed by only 1 per cent between 2018 and 2024.
The Auditor-General outlined a laundry list of failed targets.
“This includes RoL’s objectives to improve the river water quality to Class IIB (suitable for recreational use with body contact), which is hard to achieve, due to weaknesses in planning, implementation, low level of asset operations as well as low level of river care awareness,” the report said.
Another notable failure involved the construction of collapsible weir units – small dams designed to raise the water level for boating activities while allowing river water to flow during floods – costing RM33.37 million. One unit was non-operational and the other was not completed.
The report found that the absence of a comprehensive business model led to inadequate maintenance and under-utilisation of RoL assets.
It also stated that “147 river-cleaning assets were found non-operational due to damage, (being) demolished, or unusable”.
Furthermore, the project suffered from weaknesses in governance, including planning, monitoring and execution.
Federal Territories Minister Zaliha Mustafa, who inherited the project from past governments in 2023, said in Parliament on July 10 that RM3.3 billion had been allocated to clean up the river and RM1.06 billion for its beautification.
She said that, as at June 30, 130 out of 160 projects had been completed, representing 81 per cent progress. That’s just 1 percentage point higher than Najib’s figure of 80 per cent completion in 2018.
The RoL project was meant to transform the Klang and Gombak rivers into clean waterways by addressing pollution and conducting flood mitigation. But ongoing pollution from industrial and residential sources has continued to undermine these goals.
Despite RM3.9 billion of government expenditure in the River of Life project, garbage and murky water can be seen in the Klang River near the Central Market in Kuala Lumpur. PHOTO: THE STRAITS TIMES
Community leader Kennedy Michael said he discovered several weeks ago that the subsidiary of a public-listed company was discharging human waste into the river from its construction site.
The founder of community-based river ecosystem restoration group Alliance of River Three is working on restoring a 5km section of the Klang River by planting trees to regenerate the ecosystem.
Class I water quality, the highest, has so far been achieved for a 1km stretch. The group hopes to achieve Class I water quality over the 5km span by 2030. For the rest of the river, this is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
Just a few kilometres from the banks of Klang River, near Bukit Antarabangsa township, the occupants of a row of about 20 shops, including restaurants and car workshops, have for years been using the waterway as a dumping ground.
University lecturer Ong Kian Ming, who is a former Democratic Action Party (DAP) politician and former deputy minister, has taken a personal interest in the RoL project. In a statement on July 18, he issued a challenge to RoL officials to emulate Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo who swam in the River Seine before the recent 2024 Olympics to prove that it is safe for human activities.
The Klang River’s water quality oscillates between Class II and Class III, depending on the weather, day of the week and other factors, said Professor Ong.
“The river smells less now compared to 2015, but its cleanliness matters because at Class IIB and above, the water is fit for recreational activities including swimming and kayaking. At Class III and below, going into the river is unsafe for humans,” he told ST.
About the RoL project, he said: “It’s a huge amount of money over 14 years – enough to build a new hospital or upgrade a few airports.”
The River of Life project was designed to clean and beautify a 110km stretch of the Malaysian capital’s rivers and spur economic investment in the surrounding areas. PHOTO: THE STRAITS TIMES
Perhaps not everything is bleak.
Photographer Jeffrey Lim, who was part of a kayak reconnaissance along the Klang River by Prof Ong in 2015, highlighted some successes, such as improvements in sewage issues.
“Black water sewage was one of the main issues, with raw sewage flowing into rivers. I have seen an improvement in this area since then,” he said. “It was a colossal project. An idealistic one but nonetheless needed. It was too fast, too ambitious, too costly, for only two rivers.”
Dr Zaliha has pledged to continue the project, emphasising its ability to transform Kuala Lumpur.
“The River of Life project needs a new lease of life. It has the potential to be an iconic project that will change the landscape of downtown Kuala Lumpur and beyond,” said Prof Ong.