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The Star

‘Flood prevention rules to be updated'

Continuous rainfall from March 19 to 20 this year caused floods in parts of Taman Tampoi Indah 2, Johor Baru. — Filepic Johor government will hold workshops to enable all 16 local authorities to better tackle floods, said state executive councillor Datuk Mohd Jafni Md Shukor. The housing and local gov­ern­ment committee chairman said they would start with local councils in the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone as these faced the most flood-related issues. 'Our workshops since 2023 focused on getting higher allocations for flood mitigation efforts, and improving enforcement. 'This year, we will focus on improving regulations, especially for retention ponds, irrigation and drainage systems. 'This also includes standard operating procedures (SOP) that developers must follow before starting work on a site,' he said in an interview. He added that the workshops would begin in the third quarter of this year. Under the SOP, developers must build retention ponds before starting a project. Mohd Jafni also said outdated regulations must be reviewed. 'The regulations had been in use for more than 10 years and can no longer cope with the current volume of rainfall which is four to six times more than before,' he said. Mohd Jafni said earlier workshops had yielded some results. 'Just this year we received more than RM100mil, which is likely one of the highest allocation amounts from the Housing and Local Government Ministry for flood-related issues,' he disclosed. He said that some RM213mil had been allocated to carry out over 350 flood-related projects since 2023. This includes RM106mil for flood mitigation efforts involving all local authorities this year. 'Of the 123 projects for this year, 16 are under Johor Baru City Council, which has been allocated about RM42mil. 'Another 16 are under Pasir Gudang City Council with RM9.1mil, while 13 are under Iskandar Puteri City Council with some RM36mil' said Mohd Jafni. 'Through the projects, we hope to resolve at least half of the flood issues,' he added.