7-9-2014:

Mooncake Festival Party

On behalf of SDPP I would like to thank Goh Kongsi for for allowing SDPP to use their premise and their helps contributing towards the event tonight. I would also like to say a big thank you to all of you, for your support and contribution has enable tonight’s event to be held.

Coming back to the current issue, we would like to touch on the increase of coverage area for disabled friendly facilities.

The disabled depend a lot on the disabled friendly facilities in their daily life. When more areas are equipped or covered with disabled friendly facilities, the more independent the disabled can go through their life.

However it is not an easy task to improve or expand the  disabled friendly facilities in Penang. This is due to Penang has inherited a not so well planned town comes with a of lot limitations. The changes or improvements to make the state to be disabled friendly can only be made progressively and not overnight.   

However lately we observe that there are quite a number of projects being carried out by the authorities or the private sector such as road expansion, drainage upgrading, the restoration of the old heritage house, market rebuilding and beautification work, new housing project and so on. Especially for areas with old heritage houses, the chances before this to equip those areas with disabled friendly facilities were slim.

Therefore we hope that the authorities concerned could include disabled friendly facilities into those projects when approving those projects, if applicable.

We urge the authority concerned to make full use of these opportunities to enable more and more areas in Penang to be equipped or covered with disabled friendly facilities.

It is also important for the authorities concerned to ensure that the basic standard requirements of the disabled group such as the facilities should be user friendly, safe and easy to use with minimum help are met. They should also ensure that these facilities are not the types just for show or going through the motion for the approval of the related projects only.

We would also like to urge the authorities concerned to ensure that these disabled friendly facilities are around as long as possible. We do not like to see the situation such as once the approval of a completed project or OC is obtained, the disabled friendly facilities are taken away while the authorities concerned are not aware about it. 

Hopefully with the cooperation of the authorities concerned, the private sector and the general public, the state will have more and more areas covered with disabled friendly facilities, thus enable the disabled to gradually have a more disabled friendly living environment.

Lastly, I would like to thank again all the guests, all the sponsors and all the helpers for making tonight's event a success. Do enjoy the food prepared. Thank you.