THE Selangor government will hold back its own guidelines on the construction of new non-Muslim places of worship following an “oversight” by its senior exco member.

“I will request that the implementation of the guidelines for the non-Muslim places of worship be postponed until a discussion with all the relevant parties are held,” Teng Chang Khim said in a statement today.

The guidelines will be reviewed again at the Selangor executive council meeting on Wednesday.

Teng said it was an oversight on his part for not checking the amendments made to the Selangor manual guideline and Selangor state planning standard guidelines. 

The guidelines said a non-Muslim place of worship should not be built 50m from the residence of a Muslim. 

The guidelines also recommended that the height of a non-Muslim place of worship must not exceed the height of the mosque in its vicinity and new non-Muslim places of worship in areas with a multiracial community require the consent of the residents in a 200m radius.  

The guidelines are effective since January 1.

“I had noticed earlier that there was several issues that needed to be amended in the guidelines presented in September 2016. Therefore, I have had discussions with the relevant departments to make the necessary amendments,” said Teng, who is in charge of state investments, SME and transportation matters.

“The reports that I had received were that the amendments had already been done. However, based on these reports, I did not check the manual again. I believe the amendments requested for the non-Muslim places of worship were left out of the review.

“Therefore, I apologise for the mistake of not checking the manual again before it was presented to state exco.”

He said that since 2008, Selangor has approved 252 applications for land and the gazetting of non-Muslim places of worship. 

“This amount is far higher than the amount approved in the last 50 years before 2008.” – April 10, 2017.