APRIL 21 — I refer to the statement by Selangor’s State Infrastructure and Agriculture Exco, Datuk Izham Hashim, on 21 April 2026.

Datuk Izham has attempted to justify a four-year timeline for flood mitigation by pointing to countries such as the Netherlands, Germany and China. That comparison is not just misplaced – it is misleading.

Malaysia receives between 2,000 to 3,500 mm of rainfall annually, with some regions exceeding 4,000 mm. By contrast, the Netherlands and Germany receive roughly 700 to 1,000 mm annually, under far less intense rainfall conditions. Even in China, only certain southern regions experience rainfall levels comparable to Malaysia.

To cite these countries while ignoring these fundamental differences is to avoid the real issue.

The Selangor government’s assertion that resolving the state’s flood crisis will take four years – and require massive public expenditure – is therefore not a statement of necessity. It is an admission of misplaced priorities.

The state continues to rely on expensive, infrastructure-heavy solutions – river widening, deepening, and other engineering works – while refusing to confront the principal upstream driver of flooding: logging and deforestation.

Forests are not incidental to flood management. They are the first line of defence. They absorb rainfall, regulate runoff, stabilise soil, and protect entire river systems. Remove them, and water flows faster, accumulates quicker, and overwhelms downstream infrastructure. Flooding, in such circumstances, is entirely predictable.

It is indefensible that logging activities continue, including within water catchment and environmentally sensitive areas. The state cannot continue to degrade its natural flood defences and then ask the public to pay billions to compensate for that destruction.

This is not a complex problem. It is a failure of basic logic.

If Selangor is serious about addressing floods, the priorities must be immediate and unequivocal:

i) Give full effect to the 25-year moratorium on logging announced in 2009;

ii) Implement a state-wide reforestation and ecological restoration programme targeting degraded forest reserves and catchment areas; and

iii) Strictly enforce environmental laws, with full accountability for unlawful or excessive land clearing.

These are not policy options. They are minimum requirements.

Flood mitigation in Malaysia does not begin with concrete. It begins with stopping the destruction of our forests.

Until the state addresses this fundamental contradiction, any four-year plan is nothing more than an expensive exercise in managing the consequences of its own decisions.

* Rajesh Nagarajan is president of PEKA. 

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.