Penang Gerakan is banking on issues like free ports status and housing to win back Penang from the DAP.
GEORGE TOWN: Barisan Nasional’s strategy to win back Penang will be based on issues like free port status and affordable housing.
At a delegates conference yesterday, Penang Gerakan passed a resolution on five issues to unsettle the DAP-led Penang government.
The five issues are: affordable housing, traffic congestion, restoration of a free port status, freedom of information and hillslope development.
For a start , Gerakan wants the DAP-led state government to commence a rapid construction of low- to low-medium cost units for the poor, as from 2008 until now, no major housing project had taken place.
This was based on an assessment from the 2011 Auditor-General’s Report.
Gerakan also notes the increasing and worsening chaotic traffic situation in Penang.
“With no solution appearing, Gerakan urges the state government to implement findings from the Penang Transport Master Plan and it supports the suggestion to construct a modern public transport mode to cope with the rising traffic flow here.”
In view of the state’s economy showing signs of too much reliance on manufacturing, Gerakan plans to lobby the federal government to restore the free port status to Penang Port.
This can rejuvenate and stimulate the state’s economy by making the services and tourism sectors more vibrant than the present growth.
In line with the principles of Competency, Accountability and Transparency (CAT) and the Freedom of Information Act, Gerakan wants the state to declassify all documents and information related to
approval of projects here including in Taman Manggis, the sPICE project and various hillslope development.
approval of projects here including in Taman Manggis, the sPICE project and various hillslope development.
It also wants the state to be forthcoming on decisions made in meetings concerning development and socio-economic policies.
On hillslope development, where the public is greatly worried that Penang has approved 19 high-rise and high-density hillslope projects above 75 metres under the category of “special projects,” Gerakan urged the government here to comply with the state structure plan, which was gazetted in June, 2007.
It should also reject any fresh hillslope developments, which are above 75 metres high from sea-level or where the slope gradients exceed 25 degrees.
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