PENANG denied saying the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry (NRE) did not approve the EIA (environmental impact assessment) report for the undersea tunnel.

State traffic management exco Chow Kon Yeow said he could not understand why NRE minister Wan Junaidi Jaafar brought up a “non-issue”.

“The state government and contractor have yet to apply for EIA approval for the tunnel. It is still at the feasibility study and detail designs (FSDD) stage – which is 95.9% complete as of last month.

“How many times must we repeat this? We never said they did not approve the EIA for the tunnel. We never sent an EIA application,” he told a press conference at Komtar today.

BN leaders had been raising questions about the tunnel and highways project contract, the state’s land swap payment to the contractor and others.

The NRE minister joined the spat yesterday by issuing a statement saying his ministry had no official knowledge of the proposed undersea tunnel project.

Wan Junaidi said the tunnel would definitely be subject to the terms and conditions of the EIA Order 2015, which requires the submission and approval of an EIA Report to the Director-General of Environmental Quality.

“The ministry strongly urged the state government to comply with all stipulated regulations for the commissioning of such a mega project, which will foreseeably have great impact on the surface and subsea environments,” he said.

Chow said the 7.3km tunnel linking Bagan Ajam on the mainland and Persiaran Gurney on the island was a part of the larger RM6.3 billion project that also featured three highways.

The highways were the ones that recently obtained EIA approval from the ministry’s Environmental Department.

Chow said EIA report for the tunnel would only be done after the tunnel FSDD was completed and if the state government decided the project was feasible.

“We hope this clarification will be noted by the minister. I consider him a friend, but maybe he sees me as a rival.

“The minister should take pride his ministry has approved the EIA for the three highways,” the DAP leader said.

Meanwhile, state public works, utilities and transportation exco Lim Hock Seng responded to allegations by BN strategic communications deputy director Eric See-To that the contract value of the highways had increased significantly.

“We have always been consistent with the project construction cost. There is no top-up. The figures have remain the same, as what was stated in the RFP (request for proposal),” Lim said.

See-To had reportedly said while the contract value for the three highways had increased, the contract value for the undersea tunnel had decreased. 

He said this was found in the Bursa Malaysia submission by a shareholder in the project’s special purpose vehicle.

Lim presented the cost breakdown of the project, which also included the RM305 million FSDD. 

The RM772.39 million Tanjung Bungah-Teluk Bahang bypass or North Coast Pair Road (NCPR) (Package 1) comes with a construction cost of RM377.56 million, a land acquisition cost of RM394.83 million.

The Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu Expressway-Ayer Itam by-pass (Package 2), which costs a total RM991.57 million, will cost RM851.04 million to build and RM140.51 million to acquire land.

“This road will go through densely populated areas, which we will have to avoid. Again, there are many studies to conduct,” Lim said.

The RM767.49 million Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu Expressway-Persiaran Gurney by-pass (Package 3) will cost RM757.92 million for construction and RM9.57 million for land acquisition.

“This project will also include the land tunnel component in the Gurney area. When the road comes up at Jalan Perak, the highway will be multilayered. It is not so straightforward,” he said.

The tunnel’s construction will cost RM3.5 billion while land acquisition for the project will cost only RM1.38 million.

On See-To saying the RM120 million feasibility study for the NCPR was much higher than the RM96 million study for the undersea tunnel, the exco said the total feasibility studies cost for all the three highways was RM31.27 million. – January 30, 2018.