KUALA LUMPUR, April 16 — Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) conducts joint enforcement operations with the police every two days to curb the activities of street photographers, or photo touts, in the Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC) area.

Mayor Datuk Fadlun Mak Ujud said at least five photo touts were detained during each operation, with their equipment also seized.

“The number of photo touts in the area can be seen to have decreased,” he told reporters after the signing ceremony of a memorandum of cooperation (MoC) between DBKL and CIMB Bank Berhad under the ‘Moving KL Forward - Kita Bagi Jadi’ initiative here today.

He said that, in addition to enforcement, DBKL had also installed closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras to monitor the activity, together with a multilingual announcement system issuing alerts every 10 minutes cautioning tourists against using the services of photo touts.

Commenting further, Fadlun said DBKL would not issue licences for photography activities in major tourist hotspots in the capital due to safety risks.

“When photo touts take pictures, they stand on the road, which creates a dangerous situation for tourists,” he said.

Meanwhile, on rental arrears involving 51 people’s housing projects (PPR) and public housing schemes (PA) in the capital amounting to RM14 million, Fadlun said DBKL was taking a more considerate approach to address the issue by offering instalment payment schemes to tenants.

“If we are strict, then they (tenants) will have no homes. So we must be more considerate, as long as they take responsibility to pay their rent,” he said.

He said that through the approach, it had received positive feedback from tenants, who had given commitments to make payments in instalments. — Bernama