GEORGE TOWN: Two non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have expressed relief over the clarification that the National Physical Planning Council (NPPC) had not approved the Penang South Reclamation (PSR) project.
The clarification was made by Federal Territories Minister Khalid Abdul Samad.
Consumers’ Association of Penang (CAP) and Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) president S.M. Mohamed Idris, in welcoming the move, said he was also pleased that the NPPC had attached 18 conditions to the projects for approval.
He also welcomed the NPPC’s call for the state to engage with local communities and ensure their needs are considered in regards to the project.
Idris had expressed dismay over Chow’s statement on Thursday when he said that the NPPC had approved the project with 18 “advices”.
The chief minister made the announcement after the NPPC meeting which was chaired by the prime minister.
“Now it seems the chief minister has jumped the gun and made a misleading statement about the approval by the Federal Government’s NPPC.
“We very much welcome the clarification by the minister, that in fact ‘the council did not give any approval or make any decision on the project and instead it gave the state government 18 conditions’.
“We also appreciate very much the minister’s statement that ‘the state government was also advised to continue engaging with the local community and ensure their needs are given due consideration’.
“CAP and SAM together with other NGOs had been very active in analysing the proposed reclamation project as well as other projects like the Pan Island Link 1 (PIL 1) highway project, the Penang Undersea Tunnel and three paired roads projects, which together form the Penang Transport Master Plan (PTMP),” he said.
Idris said CAP and SAM would continue to be active in getting their views known to the state and federal governments and agencies, and to engage with the authorities and the local communities.
“We reiterate our view that the reclamation and other projects of the PTMP are very damaging to Penang and Malaysia in the financial, environmental, cultural, heritage and local community aspects.
“There are much cheaper, better and environmentally sound ways of improving transport in Penang, instead of the RM46 billion monstrous project proposed by the state government,” he added.
Idris said they could not understand why the projects were so over-priced, and at a time when the country was trying to save money.
He pointed out that the PIL 1 highway project, for example, at an estimated cost RM8 billion for 20km of road or RM400 million per km.
He added that this was far above the RM68 million per km cost of the revised East Coast Rail Line (ECRL) federal project and also much above many other highway and road projects in Malaysia.
“Obviously, the whole transport plan of the state government has to be reviewed from many aspects,” he said.
In the meantime, Idris stressed that Chow should not to make any further statements about the projects that were misleading.
“In recent days, he announced the reclamation project was approved by the federal-level NPPC (when it was not), and that the Department of Environment (DOE) had approved the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report for the PIL 1 project (although later he admitted the EIA contained faulty information about hill-slopes with the mistakes caused by a computer), and that the MACC had closed a corruption probe against the main company involved in the undersea tunnel project.
“Surely it is for these agencies to make any announcements, and not the chief minister to appear to be a spokesman for the NPPC, the DOE and the MACC.