State to embark on legal battle with Alam Flora

State to embark on legal battle with Alam Flora

Alam Flora Sdn Bhd might face a counter suit from Selangor Government on stopping the latter to take over its cleaning works that cost RM200 million through local authorities, said MB Khalid Ibrahim.

Alam Flora Sdn Bhd might face a counter suit from Selangor Government on stopping the latter to take over its cleaning works that cost RM200 million through local authorities, said MB Khalid Ibrahim.

This comes after Alam Flora obtained a stay order from Shah Alam High Court on June 10, pending judicial review on the state government’s decision to return the power of appointing cleaning services’ contractors to local councils.

Khalid labeled Alam Flora’s action as “a despiteful move” to obstruct the state and local authorities from pursuing a tender process for the cleaning works.

He said this has also impeded the state from improving cleaning services to ratepayers.

“We believe that Alam Flora has no ground for judicial review and we will (take) every necessary step to waive the application and cancel the stay order,” he said after chairing the Selangor exco meeting yesterday.

It was reported that at least 11 local authorities were served with the stay notice, despite a number of them such as Shah Alam City Council which has already chosen its contractors.

He said the State Legal Adviser has appointed a legal team consisting of Tetuan Fernandez & Selvarajah to represent the State Government and Selangor Government Exco Concil (MMKN) and Cyrus Dass from Messrs Shook Lin & Bok to represent all local authorities.

In April, Khalid announced that the cleaning works undertaken by Alam Flora will be handled back to local authorities in a bid to ease Alam Flora “growing responsibilities”.

The cleaning works include cutting grass, cleaning drains and parks, while Alam Flora remain in charge of  garbage collection and disposal operations.