Full 46.1 - Royal Institution of Surveyors Malaysia

THE MALAYSIAN SURVEYOR | Vol.46 | No.1 | 2011
In early years, Land Surveyors seemed to be more in
numbers as compared to Quantity Surveyors and
Valuation Surveyors, with the result that sometimes the
Council had to look around for someone from the QS and
the GP sections to take up the challenge as President of
the Institution, as from day one, the Institution honoured
its gentleman agreement of electing their President by
rotation among all disciplines of its members.
How different is ISM today as compared to
when it was first established?
The main difference is that the Secretary-General would
normally remain in the position for a few years. This was
important to ensure continuity and safekeeping of
records and allowed for the following through of Council
policies and decisions. For instance, I was the Secretary-
General for four years, P.P. Sr A.B.Marbeck for four to five
years, P.P. Sr Datuk Das also for a number of years. This
was found necessary simply because the Institution did
not have a permanent Secretariat. This is in contrast with
the arrangement now whereby the Secretary-General
tends to change hand every year.
How was the land of the current ISM Building
obtained?
The idea to have an ISM Building was first mooted by a
group of surveyors i.e. P.P. Sr Kok Swee Tuck, P.P. Sr Dr.
Khoo Boo Khean, P.P. Sr Dr. Marbeck and Sr Nicholas
Cheong. In the early days, meetings of ISM were often
held at government departments and records of ISM
were also kept at these places. The group felt that there
was a need to have a permanent building where ISM
activities could be conducted in its own place.
I was then the Chief Surveyor of PKNS and received news
about the availability of six plots of PKNS land in Section
52, Petaling Jaya available for institutional use. During
that time, two pieces of the land had already been
allocated to IEM, and another three plots of land have
been allocated to PAM. There was only one remaining
plot in between them. However, PAM was not keen in
owning and developing a new building on the three
allocated plots. I took the
opportunity to negotiate and
successfully obtained the
agreement of PAM to forego the
allotment of one lot so that ISM
together with the one lot left
behind would have two shop
lots adjacent to each other.
Applying through the Pengurus
Besar of PKNS and with the
consent of the State government,
the land was successfully bought
by ISM for RM85,000.
ISM had just enough reserve to pay for the land but was
short of funds for the construction of the building. The
ISM Building Committee had to find ways and means to
raise funds for the construction of its building. There was
a plan to solicit contributions from the well to do
members particularly the well established surveying firms
to contribute towards the building fund, but the proposal
was defeated at an AGM. Subsequently, the building subcommittee
received the approval from the general body
to levy a building fund from all members at a rate of: a
Fellow to pay RM600 and Members RM400; payable by
24 instalments. I remembered I paid RM16.67 a month
towards the building fund.
With the gradual contributions by members, the building
sub-committee was confident to proceed with the
institution building and fortunately at that time, we had a
young but enthusiastic Valuation Surveyor P.P. Dato’ Sr
Rahim who was drafted in the building sub-committee
and he managed to secure a loan of RM400,000 from
Bank Bumiputra to help us realise our dream. No doubt
the original estimation for the building cost was around
RM180,000 but the escalating cost of construction during
that period of time, the Institution had ultimately come
out with almost half a million to complete the building.
The building sub-committee had the foresight of putting
up a building bigger than what we needed at that time,
as the extra space was there to bring in handsome rental
income, which helped the Institution in the expansion of
its services and activities.
Was the ISM Building renovated?
Yes. After some years, the ISM Building had suffered from
depredation and obsolescence whilst the surrounding
buildings have improved themselves, so the Council
decided that the ISM Building be upgraded so that it
could continue to attract and retain its tenants. The
renovation involved the putting up a lift and expansion of
the Penthouse for the ISM Secretariat.
What were the difficulties
faced when the ISM
Building was under
construction?
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