BY YVONNE T. NATHAN

Commending their efforts: Tengku Adnan (left) officiating at the launch. Looking on are (from left) Kerk, JMB treasurer Wee Khen Peng and committee member Choo Pei Szu.

THE joint management body (JMB) of the Oval Tower commercial building on Jalan Damansara in Taman Tun Dr Ismail unveiled the results of its year-long efforts to improve facilities in the building earlier this week.

After its completion in 2013, the building’s occupants banded together to form a JMB to manage the 33-storey building and address issues such as the lack of proper road access said JMB chairman Kerk Boon Leng.

“To create a building, you need architects, engineers and builders; but to make Oval Damansara world-class by ourselves, we need a good management and maintenance team.

“Malaysia is very good at building, but we’re not so good at maintaining,” he said, adding that the building’s occupancy rate had reached 95%,” he said.

Federal Territories Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor attended the event to show support for the JMB’s efforts.

He encouraged others to follow the example of Oval Tower’s JMB to improve the management of buildings around the city.

“Oval Tower is on the fringes of the city and we need to develop the city evenly with commercial centres and housing for the people, not only in the central business district but also its outskirts,” he said.

When asked about the KL City Grand Prix, Tengku Adnan said he was aware that there had been issues, but it was organised with the purpose of making motorsports more accessible for people.

“Nearly 500,000 people went to the race last Sunday, from local families to tourists, all of which has a spill-over effects.

“It won’t be moved to Putrajaya because we want to promote Kuala Lumpur and have other ways of promoting Putrajaya.

“But we will talk to the organisers to see if they will be able to do it next year; we asked them to make it a free event, so whether they will be able to do it again next year, we don’t know yet,” he said.