Is 68% spike in Penang LRT mission value ‘cause for alarm’ and can it damage Anwar? | USAEMALL.com

FUNDING TROUBLES

Penang is the only state in Malaysia where a Chinese has been the leader of the state administration since independence in 1957 and the DAP, which wrested control of the state following the 2008 national elections, has made the state its stronghold ever since. 

But the DAP has been buffeted by a series of leadership troubles in the state and public controversies over its economic initiatives.

The most serious has been the Penang Transport Masterplan.

Penang, one of Malaysia’s most industrialised and economically developed states, has long suffered from traffic congestion woes.

Sometime in 2011, then-Penang chief minister Lim Guan Eng proposed a study on transportation blueprint and that in turn led to a separate economic initiative four years later with the appointment of a private entity known as SRS Consortium as the project’s so-called delivery partner.

Led by publicly listed engineering powerhouse Gamuda, the delivery party was originally tasked with managing the project and commissioning open public tenders for the various construction parcels for the originally planned rail link, now known as the Mutiara Line, and several elevated highways.

At the time, securing funding for the project became a problem because the federal government, which was then led by the Barisan Nasional coalition government headed by the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), viewed the DAP with political hostility.

The funding gap led to the award to SRS for the rights to undertake the reclamation of 4,500 acres of land known along the southern coast of the island that would help fund the transportation. 

The plan was criticised by environmental groups and the coastal fishing community, which is made of the state’s ethnic Malay population, but the DAP under the leadership of Lim as chief minister of Penang, pushed ahead with it.

The reclamation plan, which is already underway, envisioned the creation of three islands that would cater for industrial parks, financial and business hubs and high-end residential properties. The reclamation plan was subsequently downsized to one island of 2,300 acres.

It remains a source of controversy because it is unclear how the reclamation is being financed and how proceeds from the sale of the parcels of new land will contribute to the transportation masterplan.