Alam Flora will maintain public toilets in KL from next month

Public facility: Each AST cost RM400,000 and is fully automated

Source: http://thestar.com.my/metro/story.asp?file=/2012/3/23/central/10954409&sec=central (By BAVANI M, 23/3/2012)
STARTING next month, waste concessionaire Alam Flora Sdn Bhd will take over the maintenance and cleaning of public toilets in Kuala Lumpur.
Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) spends more than RM1mil annually to maintain the 44 public toilets in the city, including 20 Automatic Street Toilets (AST), each costing RM400,000. Alam Flora will now be answerable directly to the Solid Waste Management and Public Cleansing Corporation under the Housing and Local Government Ministry. The corporation will take on a regulatory and management role from DBKL. Apart from collecting garbage, Alam Flora has also taken over the grass-cutting contract and road-sweeping and drain-cleaning work which was previously undertaken by DBKL’s Landscape and Recreation Department.
Alam Flora chief executive officer Mohd Zain Hassan said they had received the grass-cutting contract recently and were now streamlining the operations. Mohd Zain said the move to manage toilets was done to standardise cleaning services and provide better service. He said the company’s main challenges in the city was keeping commercial areas like Bukit Bintang and Imbi clean. “This is where you have a high concentration of foreign workers. “They throw rubbish into drains and from apartments,’’ he said.
Mohd Zain said hawkers also throw food and rubbish into drains and block the pathway by placing chairs and tables. He said Alam Flora was spending RM802mil over the next four years to buy equipment and improve technology in line with the privatisation exercise.
Alam Flora and two other concessionaires had signed a 22-year concession agreement for the privatisation of solid waste management with the federal government on Sept 19. DBKL spends a whopping RM160mil annually for waste management.