Guan Eng comes up with 15 questions for Rahman Dahlan
(The Star) – Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng has come up with 15 of his own questions for Barisan Nasional strategic communications director Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan.
Lim, who was responding to 15 questions posed by the Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Minister on Monday, asked Abdul Rahman whether he can deny that building People’s Housing Projects (PPR) is the responsibility of the Federal Government.
He said the Federal Constitution states that housing is under the purview of the Federal Government.
“Why is Penang marginalised with the lowest number of PPR built, with 999 units out of a total of 102,118 units nationally, or a mere 0.98%?” Lim asked in a Facebook post on his official account on Tuesday evening.
Lim added that if Taman Manggis was meant for a PPR project as claimed by Abdul Rahman, he should explain how a layout plan submitted by the National Housing Department under his ministry in 2001 showed that the land was marked for “future development”.
“Is he going to deny that the previous Barisan Nasional government had given up on building PPR and instead intended to do mixed development, including shophouses? This was proposed by ex-exco member and current Penang Barisan Nasional Chair Teng Chang Yeow and supported by the then Penang Chief Minister in the declassified 2005 exco (meeting) minutes,” said Lim.
He also questioned how Abdul Rahman could claim that the present Penang state government sold land meant for a PPR when the previous state government had rejected a Federal Government proposal in 2007 to convert the Taman Manggis land for housing purposes.
Pointing out that the Taman Manggis land is only one acre, Lim asked Abdul Rahman whether he denies that the Federal Government housing guidelines require the minimum size for public housing to be two acres, as announced by then-Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Seri Chor Chee Heung on July 13, 2012.
He also asked whether Abdul Rahman refuses to acknowledge that only 4,355 low-cost and 769 low-medium-cost units of public housing were built in Penang from 2001 to 2007, while 8,092 of low-cost and 8,107 of low-medium-cost units were built by the current state government.
“How can he escape responsibility when the ministry proposes to increase the price of low-cost housing from RM42,000 to RM65,000 and low-medium-cost housing from RM72,500 to RM100,000, which is strongly opposed by the Penang state government,” added Lim.
