Better and faster data sharing among relevant agencies and more efficient delivery of services and development planning by the Kota Kinabalu City Hall can be expected with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Department of Survey and Mapping Malaysia (JUPEM) on geospatial data sharing.

JUPEM, as the authority responsible for mapping in the country, said the signing of the MoU with City Hall will ensure better accuracy and promises better services to City Hall’s stakeholders, including other agencies and the public.

At the signing ceremony yesterday, Mayor Datuk Yeo Boon Hai said that the MoU will enable City Hall to be more efficient not only in processing its development plans but also in managing traffic, cleaning services as well as enforcement of its by-laws.

“Take for example, identifying the location of a property that needs to be taxed. With better accuracy, this is now possible. Any development on the property can also be easily detected, through the updated spatial data collected. This will in turn allow for faster evaluation for the purpose of property tax collection by City Hall.

“Indirectly, the income generated from such taxation can then be channeled to City Hall’s fund to provide better services to the public, including to beautify public parks, public infrastructure, and many more,” said Yeo.

The efficient data sharing, he added, will also assist City Hall in planning better traffic flow and other needs for developing the traffic network in the city, including road expansions, developing new routes, naming of roads and streets and developing more parking spaces.

A more effective cleaning strategy, said Yeo, can also be developed as well as improve the City Hall’s law enforcement.

Director-general of the Survey and Mapping Department Malaysia, Datuk Ahmad Fauzi Nordin, pointed out that the MoU will benefit both parties with a more systematic geospatial information sharing, through a smart partnership that will enable better geospatial data development as well as map updating for the use of the public and government agencies.

` “Geospatial information has many uses. Our landscape changes from time to time. It’s a very expensive work to capture information and keep it updated. But government agencies such as City Hall need such information to be regularly updated, or otherwise risk acquiring inaccurate data. At the same time, we need information from City Hall in terms of informing us the whereabouts of the next development. We can then use our equipment and capture the location of the new development to be included in our data, and in turn give it to the City Hall for their use,” Fauzi explained.

With a more efficient data sharing, Yeo added, problems pertaining to lack of communication between government departments and agencies can also be tackled.

“The signing of the MoU means that other agencies and departments can now use the data we collected for their use. It is one step closer to providing better service and hence, better development. Because the geospatial information retrieved from this system is not easy to obtain is now available at the simple click of a button,” said Yeo.

Source:
courtesy of THE BORNEO POST

by The Borneo Post

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