Speed up Penang projects stalled under the previous federal gov't

LETTER | AnakPinang urges the federal government to hasten the evaluation and approval for the implementation of the Penang South Reclamation project, the Light-Rail Transit plan, and the Pan-Island Link 1 construction.

We have waited for more than three years since these proposals under the Penang Transport Master Plan were made public. The then federal government did not seem to pay attention or give priority to these projects and we hope the new administration will be more responsive.

Penang is the second smallest state in the federation. More than 62 percent of our island cannot be used for development due to the hilly terrain.

We have limited land space for factory, commercial, and residential purposes.

Our economy and society are sustained by the local human capital labouring in the industry and services sector. Our population has increased by 9.25 percent in five years (2013-2018) and is expected to continue to rise.

Penang is getting more congested and denser by the day.

Besides being small, Penang does not have lucrative natural resources. We have to rely on industrialisation and development to provide jobs for the locals to make a living. This policy has so far been able to sustain the state and has even achieved the highest approved foreign direct investment in 2017 at RM8.5 billion. This also means that we are more exposed to global and regional economic forces than others.

The previous federal government has stalled Penang’s development while allowing and/or investing in game-changing projects in other states. For examples, the RM43 billion Melaka Gateway project and the RM109 billion Johor Pengerang Integrated Petroleum Complex.

With the KL Tower and Petronas Towers as landmarks, Kuala Lumpur will soon have the Tun Razak Exchange with a gross development value of RM40 billion. The last iconic skyscraper built in Penang was the Kompleks Tun Abdul Razak (Komtar), erected more than 30 years ago.

After studying the Penang Transport Master Plan, we at AnakPinang view the projects as proposals to address these challenges and help the state to progress into the future.

We understand and share some of the concerns over the projects' impact. Nevertheless, all projects have both positive and negative effects, and we see the overall impact to have more benefits to Penang and her people.

Therefore, we call upon the new federal government not to stall the evaluation and approval process of the projects any longer. We in Penang have been waiting for too long.

TIMOTHY TYE & CS LING are representatives of AnakPinang.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.