Pudu Integrated Commercial Complex traders plagued by flooding

KUALA LUMPUR (May 27): Traders at the wet market located at the Pudu Integrated Commercial Complex (ICC Pudu) here are having a hard time as a result of flooding.

Last week, the water level rose to 1.5m and “engulfed the basement floor, submerging everything”, reported The Star today.

The traders who suffered losses of “hundreds of thousands of ringgit” say bad infrastructure is the culprit and that “flooding should not have happened as the RM57 million building was completed only three years ago”.

The project was a joint venture between City Hall (DBKL) and “a private developer formerly known as 1MDB Real Estate Sdn Bhd”, reported the daily.

“We are appalled by the level of shoddy workmanship, even Datuk Najib said he was shocked that there was no pump system within the building,” said Cheras MP Tan Kok Wai who visited the site with DBKL executive director for Project Management Datuk Mohd Najib Mohd.

“This should not be happening to a new building; heavy rains causing floodwaters to rise five feet is mind boggling.

“If water can go up into lifts and escalators, these are indications that there could be a bigger problem here,” Tan added.

He also told the daily that he will call for a post-mortem on the issue and ask DBKL to “prepare a report on what went wrong”.

Federal Territories Residential Representative Council (MPPWP) Sub Zone 1, Cheras chairman Bryan Lew said he was “puzzled that the water took days to recede”.

“It kept rising, so we called the Fire and Rescue Services Department to pump out the water,” he explained.

Meanwhile, Najib said DBKL would “re-examine the engineering drawings of the building”.

“For now, we will instal extra pumps and upgrade the drainage,” he told The Star.

“Rubbish is also clogging the drains. Our contractors will clean up the area,” he added.

ICC Pudu management representative Leong Wan Thong told the daily that: “We only took over (the management) from DBKL last year, we will not speculate on the issues for now.”