The mess left by BN in Penang

Questionable land deals give Guan Eng huge headache
anilnetto.com - 23 March 2008

It has been over a week since Lim Guan Eng was sworn in as Penang Chief Minister, but already he is discovering some of the serious challenges facing the new Penang state government.

He faces a daunting task. Planning approvals for major development projects in the past have been haphazard at best and irresponsible at worst. The PGCC Campaign Group met Guan Eng this afternoon in the Bilik Gerakan (someone quipped that it should be renamed “Bilik DAP”) of the Chief Minister’s office in Komtar. Apart from driving the final nails into the PGCC coffin - Guan Eng joked that the developer’s bouquet of flowers had not influenced him in any way - the activists from Penang’s main civil society groups said they would come up with a detailed proposal for a People’s Park within the next couple of months.

They also highlighted a whole range of planning and approval shortcomings that have left the island looking increasingly like a veritable concrete jungle plasted with bill boards and plagued with poor enforcement. Among the examples cited were proposals for 40-storey tower blocks on the coastline of Tanjung Bunga and the massive Hunza development along Gurney Drive. The Campaign Group stressed that there should be no major development work until Local Plans have been approved.

Land reclamation was another major issue. The activists pointed out that the previous adminstration had lost huge amounts of potential revenue by virtually handing over land reclamation projects to private developers to make lucrative profits while state coffers hardly benefited.

If land reclamation had been properly handled - there are 16,000 hectares of potential land that can be reclaimed - it could have generated enough revenue for the state to finance its operating and development expenditure for many years. Instead, IJM (along the Jelutong Expressway) and E&O (along Tanjong Tokong) appear to be the prime beneficiaries.

Land reclamation has also caused severe environmental problems - mud flats in Gurney Drive and siltation around the Penang port area. I hear that the authorities may now have to spend federal funds (public money) to dredge the sea. Let’s not even talk about the damage it has caused to marine and coastal biodiversity.

Guan Eng pointed out that Penang has to cope with tight financial constraints, with a budget deficit of RM35 million announced last year. Worse, there are several court cases coming up involving dubious land deals undertaken during the previous administration that have exposed the state to potential legal damages. In one such case involving a shady land deal in 2003, in which the state has admitted liability, the state government could be exposed to RM30 million in damages. “I don’t know where I am going to find RM30 million,” said Guan Eng, an accountant by training.

The Penang state government must institute a thorough investigation into how this could have happened.

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