Tanjung Bungah residents see red over reps’ response on telco towers

Yap Choy Ying points out the older telco tower next to a water tank at Puncak Bukit Mutiara, Tanjung Bungah.

GEORGE TOWN: A group of residents in Tanjung Bungah who claim that telco towers have been erected too close to their homes are up in arms over the response of two assemblymen to their complaints.

They said Tanjung Bungah assemblyman Zairil Khir Johari had chosen to “bombard them with statements” instead of hearing them out.

Pulau Tikus assemblyman Chris Lee, meanwhile, had labelled them “as good as anti-vaxxers” over their opposition to the towers, they said.

“There is no empathy from either of these assemblymen, only sheer contempt,” Yap Choy Ying, who leads the group of residents from Taman Concord, Lembah Permai and the general Tanjung Bungah town, told FMT.

Zairil, who is also a Penang executive councillor, recently assured residents there that it was safe to live in such close proximity to the towers.

Yap Choy Ying, who represents the group of residents.

He also asked them to show evidence of harmful effects from government departments or medical doctors if they suffered from illnesses attributed to the presence of telco towers.

Yap said two towers had been placed next to a water supply tank about 30m away from her home.

Ideally, she said, the towers should be about 600m away.

“I want to ask Zairil if he is willing to stay next to a telco tower like me. Or is he already living next to one?” she said.

She also spoke of an existing telco tower within the vicinity of the Penang Water Supply Corporation water tank which she learnt of earlier this year, when work to install a new telco pole began.

“They told me they were installing this for four mobile phone service companies,” she said.

“When I checked with the city council for their permission to put one up, they said the licence was given to them in May this year. But construction of the tower began late last year. Why is this so?”

The new telco tower installed late last year.

Yap also claimed that her group had found online studies proving the negative effect of living too close to telco towers.

“The radiation from the tower is too close, and this water is being consumed by thousands of people below the valley,” she said.

She also hit out at Lee for comparing her group to anti-vaxxers, asking if he would say the same if the situation were in his constituency.

“Comparing us to anti-vaxxers is ridiculous,” she said. “Vaccination saves lives. Electromagnetic frequency waves do not.”

Zairil, in a press conference yesterday, said he would hold a dialogue with the residents by January.

He said the timing depended on the availability of experts from the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission. - FMT