Tuesday July 17, 2012

Explain density, Teng tells Penang govt

GEORGE TOWN: The state government should explain why it approved an increase in density of development projects in Penang.

"The increase in density has had an effect on road traffic, the environment and living conditions. Why did they spend millions on land planning and zoning?

"When we were the state administration, we never spent that much of money," Penang Barisan Nasional chief Teng Chang Yeow said in a press conference at the coalition's new office in Jalan Datuk Keramat yesterday.

Teng has also demanded that Penang Municipal Council president Patahiyah Ismail explain the "tainted" list of hill projects that had been declassified for public viewing in Komtar.

"We want her to answer professionally as the list was prepared by the council.

"There are redundancies and discrepancies in the list. For example, one project was listed as two.

"We are not going to go through the list again as there is no point. We have rejected the whole list because the information is misleading and the state government is not telling us the truth," he said.

Separately, Teng said that Barisan was in the midst of planning and identifying sites to build low-cost houses.

Teng said the coalition was against the state's plan to build low-cost homes only in Batu Kawan as the logistics were not right and the planning did not make sense.

"It's not possible for some working people to ride their motorcycle to places like Butterworth and Bayan Lepas.

"We plan to upgrade and refurbish houses under government and local authorities projects such as the flats in Rifle Range and Taman Free School.

"A rent and buy' concept will also be introduced for those who want to own affordable homes costing below RM350,000.

"We'll put these plans into our manifesto," he said.

Meanwhile, Penang Gerakan has urged the state government to "go digital" in providing information on controversial hillslope projects.

The party's state vice-chairman Wong Mun Hoe said in a statement that in the current technological era, uploading the information onto the internet should not be a problem.

"If the state government is sincere and serious about CAT (Competency, Accountability and Transparency), it will not be impossible to upload all this (information) onto the internet."

He was referring to a declassified list on hillslope projects that was released by the state on July 2.

Wong said the list did not give a fair representation on the hillslope issue, which has been a bone of contention between the current and previous state government.

"Why restrict the viewing time of 20 years of records to 90 minutes?" he asked.

He added that uploading the information onto the Internet would allow the public to know the truth.