Gerakan liaison chairman Datuk Dr Teng Hock Nan should put on his reading glasses to look into land matters properly instead of simply politicising such issues.
Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said Dr Teng was going around by saying that a 99-year leasehold means the land was merely rented and that one cannot be the land owner.
Lim said he did not understand how Dr Teng could make such statements.
Those thinking of ignoring the local councils’ summonses better think twice, warned state Local Government and Traffic Management Committee chairman Chow Kon Yeow.
“The public should not think that the decision by the court in Temerloh on mini-market owner Subramaniam Gopal means everybody can throw away their summonses.
“The local councils in the state fully complied with the legal provisions under the Federal Constitution and the various Acts when issuing the summonses,” he told a press conference at his office in Komtar yesterday.
The state government has urged the federal government to approve the North Channel dredging project.
Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said today the approval of the RM 353 million capital dredging is important for the Penang Port for it to be a logistics hub in the Northern Corridor Economic Region (NCER).
“It was promised in the Ninth Malaysia Plan but was shelved and we hope it can be carried out in the 10th Malaysia Plan,” he said.
The state government has found fresh evidence suggesting conspiracy in a land deal scandal that cost it RM40 million after they were sued by a quarry operator, Penang Deputy Chief Minister (II) Prof Dr P. Ramasamy said today.
He said a state-appointed committee to investigate the wrongful transaction of a private land by the Penang government to Tang Hak Ju had unearthed a crucial letter that suggested Tang had known beforehand that the land did not belong to the state.
Kindly forward to as many as your contact recipients to help on promoting the charity performance. DAP Pulau Tikus Koay Teng Hai Service Team as the main co-organizer(Penang) for this charity tour thru out Malaysia, YB’s goal is to target to help at least 1000 orphans and able to collect RM600,000 for the orphanage home. [...]
Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan has been urged to direct his men to stop interrogating witnesses outside office hours.
Bukit Gelugor MP Karpal Singh said that if the interrogation was allowed, it would be in contempt of a High Court judgment.
Karpal Singh was referring to the High Court landmark ruling on Thursday that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission cannot interrogate witnesses beyond office hours.
The conversion to freehold status of a former state land here was done on condition that the new landowner increases the Penang Development Corporation’s (PDC) equity in its company make-up.
PDC Heritage Hotel Sdn Bhd (PHH) – a joint venture between PDC and YTL Hotels & Properties Sdn Bhd – was only allowed to have freehold status when PDC’s stake was increased to 50% from the original 49%.
The information was disclosed in de-classified minutes of decisions made by the state executive council and Land Office over the controversial conversion of the 1.4ha seafront land adjacent to the E&O Hotel in Farquhar Street here.
Penang should be granted equal treatment in preferential airport charges and benefits as enjoyed by the Malacca Airport, said Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng.
“Penang as a Unesco World Heritage Site just like Malacca should also be given such incentives,” he said during the Penang Development Corporation and InvestPenang appreciation dinner at Bukit Jambul Country Club yesterday.
Malacca Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam had earlier said he received a letter from Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat for the Malacca Airport to enjoy benefits under the Government’s incentive schemes to promote tourism in Malaysia.
Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng has lashed out at a senior civil servant overseeing the federal government’s development projects in Penang over the latter’s “threats” regarding allocations meant for the state.
Lim said the actions of the Penang State Development Office (SDO), which comes under the Implementation Coordination Unit of the Prime Minister’s Department, was tantamount to sabotage.
At a press conference today, he showed a letter dated Oct 13 from the SDO addressed to the state Drainage and Irrigation
Penang has yet another village eviction issue on its hands, as some 250 families living at a fringe of the Royal Malaysian Air Force Base (RMAF) in Butterworth have been asked to move out of the land which comes under the purview of the Defence Ministry.
State executive councillor Phee Boon Poh, who is also assemblyman of Sungai Puyu where the village is located, said the state was helping the families of Kampung Paya Terbakar broker a suitable compensation deal with the federal authorities.
Penang’s UMNO is running scared following the decision by Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng to declassify decisions made by the Penang State EXCO and Land Committee minutes on PDC Heritage Hotel Sdn Bhd (PHH) status following UMNO false and baseless attacks to try to undermine the Pakatan Rakyat state government’s credibility. Instead of welcoming this declassification in line with the state government’s CAT principles of competency accountability and transparency, Pulau Betong assemblyman Muhamad Farid Saad is not interested but continues to harp on false allegations whether Lim had lied.
The Penang government may declassify minutes of its state executive council and land committee meetings on a controversial land conversion approval, following criticisms by the Barisan Nasional (BN) state opposition.
Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said the state exco will be requested to open up confidential minutes on the decision to convert from leasehold to freehold, a 1.4ha plot in George Town‘s Unesco heritage zone.
The Penang state government and Gerakan continued bickering over the decision to turn down a US$3bil (RM10.1bil) investment deal because the state government could not guarantee 1,000 electric and electronic (E&E) engineers required by the company.
In a statement yesterday, Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng’s special investment officer Jeffrey Chew lashed out at Gerakan for using hit-and-run tactics and practising a “promise first hope later” attitude.
The DAP questioned the 2010 Budget allocation of RM394 million to compensate toll concessionaires for not raising toll rates and urged the government to renegotiate the contracts or take over the tolled highways instead.
Speaking to reporters in a press conference, Bukit Bendera MP Liew Chin Tong pointed out the government had also paid RM180 million in 2009 and RM380 million in 2008 under the Works Ministry as similar compensation.
Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng slammed various parties who created a fuss over the earlier issue of the approval of four controversial high-rise projects in the George Town heritage zone, for their ‘deafening silence’ when it comes to the state’s efforts to garner funds from the federal government for heritage conservation.
Lim said when the issue of the controversial high-rise projects came up, various interested parties issued a lot of press statements about it.
Instead of keep going back to the issue of mainstream versus vernacular schools, the Barisan Nasional should go to the root cause of racial disintegration.
The recent statement by former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad that following the example in other Countries such as USA, Canada and Australia, Malaysia should just have a single-stream school is going back to square one of this issue. Mahathir also blamed the Chinese educationists for the failure of his vision school project.
This is not the first time Mahathir or other UMNO-Barisan Nasional leaders tried to put the blame of the country’s racial problems on vernacular education. In fact in December last year, Mahathir’s son and currently a Deputy Minister Mukhriz Mahathir had called for the abolishment of vernacular educations.
Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng did not turn down the USD3bil (RM10.2bil) investment as claimed by Gerakan economic bureau head Wan Sun Keong at the Gerakan National Delegates’ Conference yesterday.
Lim’s special investment officer Jeffrey Chew said in a press statement released today that Lim had never turned down any quality investment by multi-national companies.
Pharmacists must carry out their responsibility to inform and educate the public on the effects of over-the-counter medicines when selling them, Penang Health, Welfare and Caring Society Committee chairman Phee Boon Poh said.
He said there were pharmacists who were distributing medicines without letting the buyers know what sort of side-effects they could expect.
The DAP has called on the Government not to implement the proposed service tax on credit card holders, which will cause financial hardship to the poorer segments of society.
DAP secretary-general and Bagan Member of Parliament Lim Guan Eng criticised the move, proposed in the Budget 2010, which is RM50 on each principal credit and charge card and RM25 for supplementary cards.
The policy will push more consumers to borrow money from “ah long” or illegal moneylenders, especially when the country is facing the effects of the global economic slump, he added.
I would like to first convey my congratulation to Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak for presenting his first budget since his appointment April this year. Nonetheless, it is most unfortunate that while the Prime Minister tried to present a Pakatan Rakyat and DAP-like reform in the economy through his well-worded budget speech, the budget itself failed in the spirit of real reform.
Most prominently, gender provisions are still missing from Najib’s 2010 Budget. The Budget did not reflect the seriousness of gender inequality in our country nor the seriousness of Government’s effort to promote empowerment.
PENANG is on the right track towards becoming an international city, Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said.
He said the state had recorded several firsts that had given it an impetus toward striving hard to attain international recognition.
“Penang was the first state to eradicate hardcore poverty besides being the first to implement a No Plastic Bag Day on every Monday to protect the environment.
The state government plans to reduce the development charge, by up to 67%, for residential and commercial projects certified to have complied with the green building index (GBI).
Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said the move was to encourage the construction of more green buildings and make Penang a green state, reports Bernama.
“We will discuss this in the near future. We want to encourage GBI in all state government buildings from next year,” he said when opening a GBI forum here today.
Lim Guan Eng’s Blog
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