He said under the normal procedures, police would not procrastinate in taking such action as it concerned lives of the people.

He said the Home Ministiy had explained that in real situations, when police were confronted with other cases, that occurred at about the same time or trapped in a traffic jams, there would be some delays for the police in attending the emergency calls or late in rushing to the crime scene.

Tiong said this after receiving a reply on his question by Home Ministry at the Parliamentary session yesterday.  He bad asked the Ministry to explain the procedures taken by the police upon receiving emergency calls on criminal cases and the time taken by the police to rush to the scene.  This was following complaints by members of public that there had been delays by lhe police in attending their emergency calls.

Tiong said he would take up this matter up with the Home Ministry so that it would be able to er study ways acid means to expedite police action in serious and emergency cases.

"I am going to discuss this matter with the Ministry so that we could find better and quicker ways for thee police to tack action especially during serious emergency cases or what we could do in finding alternatives if the police are trapped in traffic jams or they are confronted with other cases which occurred at the same time," he added.

At the parliamentary session, Tiong also asked the Ministry of Science,
Technology and Environment on the in effertiveness of actions taken by the Department of Environment (DOE) against sawmill operators who resorted to open burning in the vicinity of Sebauh-Pandan area in Bintulu.

Tiong said the DOE had always conducted periodic inspections to industrial areas there, apart from carrying out irlvestigations upon receiving complaints and working closely with,the police air unit to monitor open burning activities from air.

He also said last year alone, the DOE had issued. three compounds for the offences relating to open burning until May this year, it had issued three other compounds to sawmill operators on similar offences under the Quality Air Act 1974.

Tiong said the DOE had recently conducted enforcement operations from June 29 to July 6, apart from organizing awareness campaigns to make the public and factory owners aware of the offences relating to open burning.

He also advised sawmill operators and factory o@yners to give their fullest co-operation to the authorities in stopping open burning.  "For factories that emit clouds of black smoke, I urge them to upgrade their smoke-emitting system to avoid such recurrence,"' he added.

Tiong said these factory owners and sawmill operators should,not be, profit-oriented only, they should also think of the health aspects that could affect the residents in the surrounding ireas.