Johor MB slams Chow for ‘failed’ Forest City remarks

 

Onn Hafiz Ghazi said Chow Kon Yeow’s remarks were ‘irresponsible, unnecessary and inappropriate’.

PETALING JAYA: Johor menteri besar Onn Hafiz Ghazi has taken Penang chief minister Chow Kon Yeow to task for claiming that the Penang South Islands (PSI) project will not become the next Forest City.

Onn Hafiz said Chow’s remarks were “irresponsible, unnecessary and inappropriate” after Chow said on Friday that the project’s critics had been making false assertions that it would become like the failed luxury township in Johor.

“Unfortunately, the (Forest City) project faced a number of challenges, which were mainly external in nature and beyond the control of the developers,” New Straits Times quoted Onn Hafiz as saying.

“One of the main challenges was the unfavourable national policy ecosystem, with repeated policy reversals and flip-flops, especially at the federal government level.”

He said Forest City had been slated to be a major supporting feature for the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore high-speed rail (HSR) project, which was postponed and subsequently cancelled by Putrajaya.

Forest City has been branded a “ghost town” by news outlets as it has struggled to get foreigners, particularly Chinese nationals, to buy properties there.

In 2018, then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad caused an international stir when he announced that Malaysia would not allow foreigners to buy residential units built at the US$100 billion (RM426 billion) luxury township project.

However, he later made a U-turn and said foreigners could buy properties in Forest City, but the then Pakatan Harapan government would not issue them visas to make Malaysia their home.

Despite the partial retraction, several news outlets reported that the damage had already been done to Malaysia’s reputation in the eyes of Chinese investors.

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Onn Hafiz said Mahathir’s announcement at the time did not help the township’s prospects, adding that the then government’s decision to also put the Malaysia My Second Home programme on hold further derailed the Forest City project.

“It seems that these policy changes were meant to thwart the success of the Forest City project, which was an innovative and far-sighted development that would bring enormous benefits to the country as a whole,” he said. - FMT