MBJB has held a ‘The Greater Johor Bahru’ Workshop together with MBIP (Iskandar Puteri City Council), MBPG (Pasir Gudang City Council) and MPKu (Kulai Municipal Council) that aims to detail and identify short, medium and long-term actions and programmes of the 10 pillars of The Greater Johor Bahru.
In its meeting report in May 2022, Mayor Datuk Mohd Noorazam Osman of the Johor Bahru City Council (MBJB) stated that the agenda was created to realise the state government’s intention to drive the development of Johor and Johor Bahru, particularly to be in line and on par with other developed cities abroad.
Through the agenda of The Greater Johor Bahru, a strong and consistent strategic cooperation will be established by involving 4 local authorities in the districts of Johor Bahru and Kulai, namely MBJB, MBIP, MBPG, and MPKu.
All four local governments will go in the same direction in terms of planning and governance as a result of this collaboration, which is based on ten fundamental pillars, particularly:
- Improving coordination and cooperation towards strengthening an efficient governance system.
- Strengthen the role and function of the four local authority’s areas as an international and competitive metropolis in one entity under the image and branding of The Greater Johor Bahru.
- Coordinate land use in a balanced manner to achieve the objectives of sustainable development, resilience and responsiveness to current economic demand and supply.
- Improving the level of accessibility and mobility of the city through the provision of comprehensive infrastructure and management of various modes of public transport and facilities in an integrated manner.
- Cultivating low carbon practices
- Improving the cleanliness of the city through the effective management of solid waste and scheduled waste
- Coordinate the implementation of smart cities in an integrated manner through digital and telecommunication infrastructure network planning
- Increase yields for food security and support green neighbourhood objectives, systematically intensify urban agriculture efforts
- Manage natural resources sustainably and consistently
- Improving the well-being of city dwellers through inclusive socio-economic empowerment.
Each of these 10 pillars has an action plan that is divided into 3 categories, namely short-term (1 year), medium-term (2-3 years) and long-term (4-5 years).
The mayor stated that he has been entrusted with leading the Greater Johor Bahru agenda at the local authority level, and that an action plan was presented to the chairman of the Johor housing and local government committee, Datuk Mohd Jafni Md Shukor, on the 23rd of May, and that it will be refined before any further action is taken.
Mohd Jafni in his own statement said, “I will always monitor regularly to ensure that the work under these 6 clusters is implemented according to the timeline that has been set.”