GEORGE TOWN: The Penang Island Municipal Council (MPPP) will take legal action against a private company for felling trees atop Bukit Kukus around the middle next month.
Its legal department head Shamiah Bilai told New Straits Times yesterday that the local council had written to the Companies Commission of Malaysia to seek full data on the company's background.
"The details on the company's principal activity and shareholders' structure and will be known soon, by Friday.
"We are liaising with the deputy public prosecutor's office to get the legal papers ready.
Our aim is to finalise the fact-finding about the culprit and to furnish information to the DPP for the lawsuit," Shamiah said.
She said the council hoped that the culprit would be hauled to court soon.
Sources from MPPP engineering department said the culprit was a holding company with its related companies linked to agricultural activities.
MPPP secretary Ang Aing Thye had said the council would proceed with legal action against the company behind the stripping of green lungs near Paya Terubong.
Ang had asked the legal department to liaise with the DPP’s office to speed up the process of hauling the company to court for illegal clearing of some plots of land on Bukit Kukus.
He said it was likely the company would be charged under Section 70A(1) of the Street, Drainage and Building Act 1974 for felling the trees on a hill slope, and Section 70A(5) of the same Act, for defying a stop-work order issued on Sept 25 last year.
If found guilty, the company faces a maximum RM50,000 fine.
New Straits Times highlighted a complaint by Tanjung Bungah assemblyman Teh Yee Cheu that Bukit Kukus, some 400m above sea level, was in a sorry state with bald patches visible from afar.
Teh, known as the Green YB, had also provided photographic evidence of massive land clearing and tree felling atop Bukit Kukus.
Residents in the area had also expressed their concern of possible landslips.
Barely a year after the land clearing in Bukit Relau, about 3km away, the latest rape on last few remaining green lungs in Penang have angered the environmentalists, state administration and residents nearby in the Taman Terubong Jaya housing estate.
The incident had also infuriated state Local Government, Traffic and Flood Mitigation Committee chairman Chow Kon Yeow who was fuming mad after the illegal hill clearing came into light last month.
Chow had called for MPPP to take action against the culprit without delay.
MPPP issued a stop-work order on Sept 25 last year when they first spotted the hill clearing.
A second stop-work order was issued to the company on June 17 when the company had failed to take remedial action on the bald patch.
A MPPP engineering department spokesman said the land owner did not submit a detailed mitigation plan to save the barren hill slope and the delay prompted the council to issue a second stop work order.
The company was supposed to stop all land clearing works and place tarpaulin sheets on the exposed hill slopes.
However, the tree felling continued and the bald patch has grown to about the size of a football field.
The culprit verbally agreed to minimise the environmental degradation but did not honour its word.
The latest case of hilltop clearing serves as a chilling reminder that illegal land clearing, especially in remote and hilly areas, is still continuing despite the Bukit Relau debacle, which saw General Accomplishment Sdn Bhd slapped with a revised maximum RM50,000 fine by the Court of Appeal for failing to submit earthworks plan as required by Section 70A of the Street, Drainage and Building Act 1974.