KOTA KINABALU – Covid-19, squatters, abandoned buildings, and township issues await Noorliza Awang Alip as she takes on her new role as Kota Kinabalu’s new mayor from January 1, 2021.
The former Kota Kinabalu City Hall director-general has become Sabah’s first ever woman to be appointed to the post, and perhaps the second in the country after Petaling Jaya’s Alinah Ahmad who became mayor in 2012.
Noorliza did not expect to be appointed and was unsure at first that she would be able to carry on the duties of a mayor.
But words of support from her senior colleagues at DBKK which included outgoing mayor Datuk Nordin Siman had prompted her to accept the role.
“I have been doing this work for so many years and I decided to accept the role. I cannot let down those who believe in me,” she told reporters after receiving her duties and appointment papers at the DBKK headquarters here today.
Noorliza, who is from Tuaran, joined City Hall in 1996 and climbed the organisational ladder to become DBKK’s director-general.
Noorliza wants to, among others, formulate a new by-law or use existing ones to solve the problem of abandoned buildings and idle land. – The Vibes, December 31, 2020
