‘Chinatown landowners never signed with MRT’

There was no mutual agreement with project owners to give up their land for six months, says Chinatown rep Stanley Yong

KUALA LUMPUR: None of the property owners affected by future My Rapid Transit (MRT) construction have signed legal agreements with the project’s owners, MRT Corp.

Chinatown representative Stanley Yong said that none of the Jalan Inai, Bukit Bintang or Sultan landowners had found MRT Corp’s “mutual agreements” acceptable.

“We have to clarify here that in the three affected areas – Jalan Inai, Jalan Bukit Bintang and Jalan Sultan – none of the owners have signed any mutual agreement with MRT Corp.”

“The landowners have engaged lawyers to negotiate with MRT’s lawyers, and found that many conditions in the mutual agreement were not acceptable,” he told reporters in the Parliament lobby.

He was accompanied by Bukit Bintang MP (DAP) Fong Kui Lun.

According to Yong, the only thing that the landowners had signed was a non-legally binding POA (Points of Agreement).

He was referring to Deputy Finance Minister Awang Adek Hussein, who told Parliament yesterday that two out of the 23 Chinatown landowners did not want to accept the government’s terms in regard to the MRT’s construction.

According to Awang Adek, these terms stated that several of the owners would have to move out of their properties for six months during the construction and would be compensated accordingly.

Before they could vacate their buildings, however, the property owners would have to sign a mutual agreement with MRT Corp first.

Soil investigation report

In August 2011, Prasarana, the MRT’s initial project owners, told Jalan Sultan, Bukit Bintang and Imbi landowners that their land needed to be acquired for the building of the MRT.

The announcement came as a shock to these landowners. Many did not appreciate being told that their lots were to be taken away at the last minute.

Since then, politicians, NGOs and other support groups had protested against the MRT, warning that it might see many heritage buildings here demolished.

In a previous FMT report, the POA was revealed to be a “very standard document”, and did not address problems in detail.

According to the POA, landowerss would have to vacate their lots for six months.

Today, Yong wondered if MRT Corp, wholly owned by the Finance Ministry, was misleading the deputy minister into thinking if the latter was being misled by the company.

Demanding clarification, Yong asked for MRT Corp to come out with a social impact assessment and soil investigation report on the matter.

He added that MRT Corp’s lawyers had allegedly sent out letters to Bukit Bintang landowers to vacate, even though a mutual agreement was not signed.

“We know that the laywers of MRT Corp have sent out letters to all the landowners in Bukit Bintang, asking them to vacate the place before the end of this month,” he said.