A GROUP of activists today protested again against the Penang government’s plans to build more roads and projects on hill slopes and reclaimed land.

“Save our hills, save our seas, save Penang,” some 30 civil society representatives and concerned Penang citizens shouted from across the legislative assembly.

“The CAT is dead,” they shouted, referring to the state government’s popular CAT (competency, accountability, transparency) tagline.

“Reject sea reclamation, reject development on steep hill slopes,” they said, as the second state assembly sitting for the year began this morning with Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow scheduled to table the Penang Budget 2019 later.

This is not the first time they have protested outside the house. In the last sitting in August, the same group of people protested outside the state assembly building.

Penang Forum representative Khoo Salma Nasution said Penang folk no longer wanted to see man-made disasters happen after two landslides at construction sites claimed 20 lives since last year.

On October 19, nine foreigners were killed in a landslide at a road construction site in Paya Terubong. In October last year, a landslide at a Tanjung Bungah condo construction site killed 11 workers, including a Malaysian site supervisor.

“The state should not carry out projects that threaten the environment and lives. We want all assemblymen to voice up on this issue.

“The assemblymen should speak according to their conscience. Each rep knows of this problem. We have already crossed the limit (with these kind of developments),” Salma said.

She also said Penang Forum was against the state’s decision to approve two hotel projects on Penang Hill.

Yesterday, Chow reportedly said the administration has, in principle, allowed the Penang Hill Corporation (PHC) to proceed with its proposed plans to build two hotels on Penang Hill.  

Salma said civil society once saved Penang Hill in the early 1990s when the then Gerakan-led state government proposed to develop the hill and build hotels.

As a result of campaigns against the plan, protests and public anger, then chief minister Dr Lim Chong Eu lost his state seat in the 1990 general election and retired from politics.

Salma said when Penang was hit by a storm last November, almost 200 landslides happened on Penang Hill.

This should be a sign that the hill should not be developed, she said.

“The new Penang Structure Plan draft will now allow projects on slopes exceeding 25 degrees gradient. We will be having reclamation of a total of 7,000 acres.

“Of that, 4,500sq ft will be from the three islands. It will be like Johor’s Forest City. Who will live there?” she said, referring to the Penang South Reclamation proposal.

The PSR reclamation is mooted to fund the ambitious multibillion-ringgit Penang Transport Master Plan that proposes highways, hill and undersea tunnels, a light rail transit system and others to overcome the state’s worsening traffic woes.

She added that civil society and concerned citizens will continue to protest the development plans and organise more demonstrations. – November 9, 2018.