Sadness turns to anger as the blame game hots up

GEORGE TOWN: Politicians have gone from sad to angry over the Tanjung Bungah landslide.

The finger-pointing and mud- slinging have intensified, with Penang Barisan Nasional chairman Teng Chang Yeow using American president Abraham Lincoln’s classic quote about hoodwinking the people.

“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time,” he said in a statement yesterday.

He also took state Housing, Town and Country Planning Committee chairman Jagdeep Singh to task over claims that the state government would never approve projects that exceeded 76m.

Teng pointed out that in 2015, state Local Government Committee chairman Chow Kon Yeow announced that 56 projects that exceeded 76m were approved by the then Penang Municipal Council for various reasons since 2008.

He said that one of the reasons could be the projects were approved by the council before the 76m-limit came into force, when the Penang Structure Plan (PSP) was gazetted in 2007.

Jagdeep had said that since 2008, the state had rejected 11 applications for development projects which exceeded 76m.

Meanwhile, DAP’s Tanjung Bun-gah assemblyman Teh Yee Cheu urged the state government to order the developer of the affordable housing project, to complete the clearing of the remaining debris at the site.

“The clearing is necessary to make sure that no bodies are unaccounted for. Although the names submitted by the developer to the Fire and Rescue Department tallied, the state government should still put all doubts to rest.

“The project buyers are also in limbo as they do not know whether to continue servicing their loans. I hope the developer and the state government can come up with an amicable solution for them,” he said in a statement.

Teh added that instead of deflecting, denying and defending, the state government and council should look into stopping all the hill development projects.