Malaysian town planner blazes new trail

A FEMALE town planner and a handful of passionate team members have risen to the challenge and set up a company to manage the George Town Heritage Site from scratch in only six months. 

Malaysia’s George Town and Maleka were jointly chosen as Unesco World Heritage sites in 2008. 

Maimunah Mohammed Sharif also led her team to organise the First George Town Festival in 2010. The event has now become Penang state’s annual month-long event that attracts visitors from far and wide.

Maimunah first became involved in preparing a dossier on George Town in 1987. Despite this long experience, she said it was not easy to set up George Town World Heritage Incorporated (GTWHI), a task given to her in November 2009 with a time frame of nine months. 

“At that time, we were very new to the heritage thing … I am a government servant and I don’t have any experience in setting up a company,” she recalled. However, with help from friends and people in Penang, the team registered the WHI in April 2010. 

The team also delivered the George Town Festival in six weeks with 400,000 Malaysian ringgit as a starting point. “We slept in the office during the festival; every morning my husband needed to bring me clothes, sometimes they were a mismatch. A volunteer also dozed off while riding a motorbike at 4am, had an accident and landed in hospital.”

Engaging with all stakeholders to let them understand the importance of the heritage site, and what could and could not be done, required knowledge, teamwork, patience and a right mindset, she said. 

“To familiarise myself better with George Town, I would walk the streets every day for at least an hour before the day began to talk to people and study the building and learn what was happening on the street,” she said. She became “mellower” compared to when she worked at the municipal council’s office on the 16th floor of Komplexs Tun Abdul Razak building, she said.

As she now serves as the head of Penang’s Seberang Perai municipal council, which is on the mainland since March 2011, Maimunah said her passion for heritage conservation continued. “After my two years at WHI, I realised the importance of heritage so we also set up a heritage unit at Penang’s Seberang Perai municipal council. We drew up – in-house by the staff members – a tourist map and a heritage map. I want my staff to learn and appreciate the work that we are doing, then there will be a sense of belonging and a sense of pride among them,” she said.

Although tourism is still focused on the island, she said, “If I wait until everything is ready, including infrastructure, it will be forever. So, this is the risk I am willing to take.”

“I think that in order to manage the city, we have to be brave to try a new thing and also be brave if it fails. When it fails, people will point fingers at you, but we have to be brave to take a challenge, and if we fail, we also have to have the courage to go forward to try new things.”

Starting her career in 1985 as a town-planning officer at Penang Island’s municipality council, Maimunah was promoted to head the Department of Planning and Development from June 2003 until November 2009. Among many awards, she was honoured with the ‘Planner of the Year’ award by the Malaysian Institute of Planners.