THE LONG-AWAITED USJ 1 public health clinic project, which was cancelled by the Government last year after a more than 10-year wait, has been reinstated.
This was revealed by Subang MP Wong Chen today, who said the allocation for Subang Jaya’s first Government clinic has been provided for in Budget 2023.
“There is happy news for my constituents of Subang from Budget 2023: on Budget day (Oct 7), I received a WhatsApp message from Khairy informing me that the budget for the USJ1 health clinic has been approved for next year,” Wong said in a statement.
The PKR lawmaker said one of his service centre’s staff – “Bala” – was then assigned to find a snapshot of the project’s allocation in the Budget documents.
“Well, Bala found it late last night (Oct 8), not in the 1,000 plus pages of actual Budget documents but in the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) Budget 2023 PowerPoint, hence the slightly delayed posting now.”
The PowerPoint slide Wong shared does not mention how much has been allocated for just the USJ 1 public health clinic project.
Funding for the project, to the tune of RM45 mil, was approved under the 12th Malaysian Plan (RMK12) that was tabled in Parliament in September 2021.
However, the following month, the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) under the Prime Minister’s Department cancelled the project as the MOH requested a higher Budget of RM67.8 mil instead.
To rub salt into the wound, this was only revealed in a parliamentary reply in March this year – some five months later.
At the time, Wong urged MOH to explain why it requested a higher budget than the original RM45 mil and why it did not insist on getting the project going as per the original budget.
“A complete mockery of the process”
He added that the “overbudgeting” excuse used to justify the cancellation of the project “made a complete mockery” of the Government budgetary process and further contradicts the promises made by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob under the RMK12 masterplan.
In his statement today, Wong said to be fair to Khairy, he has been accommodating and engaged in dialogue with the former from time to time on how to revive the project, despite its cancellation.
“A month ago, he told me that he had included the USJ1 clinic in his ministry’s budget. Now, he has delivered on that promise.
“On behalf of the people of Subang, I want to thank the minister for his efforts to re-instate the project,” Wong said. “This clinic will serve my constituents in the low-cost flats of USJ1 and also the very large pool of the aging population of Subang.”
As per the latest census of 2020, the total population of the Subang parliamentary constituency, which covers SS12 to SS19, UEP Subang Jaya (USJ), Putra Heights, Batu Tiga and parts of Puchong and Bandar Sunway, stood at 478,000 people.
Even so, there is not one single Government hospital or health clinic within the constituency; the nearest public health clinics are the Kelana Jaya Health Clinic and Batu 14 Puchong Health Clinic, which are over capacity.
There used to be a 1Malaysia Clinic in USJ 1 when Datuk Seri Najib Razak was prime minister in 2012. However, it was shuttered in 2019 after Pakatan Harapan rebranded and reviewed the 1Malaysia clinic project.
Subang Jaya assemblywoman Michelle Ng Mei Sze previously said that 10% of the municipality’s population consists of the urban poor while 10% of its residents will comprise senior citizens by 2025. – Oct 9, 2022
Main photo credit: Reuters
