Friday, 17 April 2026

Why charge full assessment rate on shoplot unit at Merdeka Mall that has been closed since 2019? Chieng Jen asks Miri City Council

KUCHING, April 17 2026: Sarawak DAP chairman Chong Chieng Jen today asked Miri City Council (MCC) the rationale of charging a full assessment rate of a unit of shoplot located at Merdeka Mall that has been closed since 2019.

Caption: Unit's owner Peter Wong (right) handing over a letter of demand from Miri City Council to Sarawak DAP chairman 

He said two days ago the unit’s owner Peter Wong came to see him seeking help to request MCC to reduce the rate.

“In late 2025, Wong had written to the MCC asking for a 50 per cent discount off the assessment rate of his unit for year 2024 and 2025.  

“The reason in support of his application was that Mall has been totally closed and unoccupied since 2019.

“Instead of engaging with Wong to discuss the proposed discount on the assessment rate, MCC engaged a legal firm to issue letter of demand against him demanding for a full payment of the assessment rate,” Chong said in a statement.

He stressed such a hand-handedness in which a local authority responds to people’s appeal is most undesirable.  

“Putting aside the ugly and high-handed manner in which the MCC has acted, in fact and in law, due to the closure and non-occupancy of the Mall, the MCC has a legal obligation to substantially reduce the Assessment Rate chargeable on the Mall and all the units within.

“It is a well-known fact in Miri that the Mall was closed since 2019.  Wong’s unit, being located in the Mall could not be rent out and had since 2019 been left unoccupied.

“For Wong’s unit, the ARV valued by the MCC before the closure of the Mall was RM7,370 and a rate of 23.5% was charged thereon making the assessment rate chargeable thereon to be RM1,732 per annum.

“Given that the whole of the Mall has been closed and unoccupied since 2019, the ARV of Wong’s unit which is the “estimated gross annual rent” that the above Property “might reasonably be expected to let” is thus zero since 2019.  

Chong stressed that under the Local Authorities Ordinance, 1996, assessment rates are levied for the purposes of providing scavenging, sewerage desludging, street lighting and road maintenance services serving the property concerned.  

“As the whole of the Merdeka Mall  has been closed and unoccupied since 2019, there was thus no such services provided and serving the Mall.

“Without the provision of these services to Wong’s unit and the whole of Mall, MCC has no justification to collect the assessment rates,” Chong said.

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