FORMER Penang Port Commission (PPC) chairman Jeffrey Chew has been remanded for four days, as Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) investigators pursue what a source describes are new leads into the Penang undersea tunnel project.

“The MACC applied for seven days but we objected and the court gave four days. The remand ends on Saturday,” Chew’s lawyer, RSN Rayer, told reporters after the proceedings at Bayan Baru police station today.

Rayer did not want to disclose under what section of the law Chew was being investigated.

“This is in relation to an MACC investigation over a report made recently to it.

“We will continue to defend him. We believe has not committed any wrongdoing,” he said.

The MACC arrested Chew yesterday at 2pm while he was at the agency’s Penang headquarters giving a statement.

Chew’s house in Batu Ferringhi was raided yesterday.

More witnesses are to be called, including senior Penang government officials and possibly former chief minister Lim Guan Eng, a source also said.

“The MACC has reopened the investigation (into the Penang tunnel project) after receiving a few leads,” the source told The Malaysian Insight.

Chew was Lim’s special officer when the latter was chief minister.

In 2013, during Lim’s tenure, the state government awarded the 7.2km undersea tunnel project to Consortium Zenith Construction Sdn Bhd.

The RM6 billion project was to connect Butterworth on the mainland to George Town on the island as part of the Penang Transport Master Plan.

In January 2018, the MACC raided Penang government offices as part of investigations into corruption allegations about the project. – July 1, 2020.