YB Lim Guan Eng. I have issued a request directly by mail and through the media to you for a debate with me on the Kampung Buah Pala issue. You have not acknowledged it yet in public, though you have refused me privately. Why don’t you want to take up my challenge? Is it that it is too low for you as the CM of Penang, to debate with a lowly member of the rakyat, like me. Let me tell you, it will only show how great you are as a leader if you accept my challenge. If you refuse there will be many interpretations for your refusal but only one, if you accept, that is, you are a great individual and leader.
The topic of the debate surely will not be whether you signed any documents or not, but how in the first place you allowed this fiasco to happen. You behave now, as if you had no choice.
I do not believe that at all. I believe there was much you could have done.
What you did not have and still do not have, in my opinion, is a political will to have acted more circumspectly on this matter. It is an Indian heritage village of just some 24 cowherd families which has no political value for you. That is why you allowed this thing to happen, not expecting that it will blow up in your face, as it has. You just did not care at that time when you made the decision.. Knowing the kind of personality you are, you must think we are naïve, know nothing idiots to take your argument that you had absolutely no choice available to you at that time.
In any case, since you have now broken your silence on the matter after a long while, and regardless of whether you accept my challenge for a debate or not, I have several questions for you which I challenge you to respond to in this forum. If you truly have nothing to hide, then the least you will do is respond.
1) Was the sale of the Kampung Buah Pala Land not a lapsed deal by the time your Government took over in March 2008 - in that the date for the full settlement was way past due? There was about a 12 month gap between the deposit payment of RM 963K by the Koperasi on the 22nd of March 2007 and the final settlement of RM 2,2247K on the 14th of March 2008. This automatically would have resulted in the expiry of the deal. So was this not a case of an expired deal going through?
2) If that was the case, then surely it cannot be a standard administrative procedure of issuing the land title on payment of the balance amount. It would have come up for a decision at the higher levels. Why do you keep insisting that it was a standard administrative procedure on a large and controversial deal?
3) Did the villagers not come and see you personally soon after the 12th GE on the 13th of March 2008 and did you not tell them that if the deal was not through, you would stop it? On the 14th of March 2008 the balance was paid by the Koperasi and the title issued on the 27th of March 2008.
4) Why did you not stop or delay the transfer of the title given these circumstances – the deal was a lapsed one, the villagers reminded you before the final payment was made, you would have known about it clearly, so why did you not do anything at that point?
5) Is there a stipulation in the State Exco deliberations of the 18th of August of 2004, that the developer can only begin the development project after he settles the villagers resettlement and compensation issues?
6) If so, how is it that you have allowed the developer to go ahead with his development project now,without settling all the villagers as stipulated? You have been very circumspect about the Federal Court order, but you have been rather sloppy with regards to the Exco stipulations which has equal legal binding – this being land matter, over which the State Government is the final authority.
7) Why did you refuse the villagers proper legal representation during your heart to heart meetings? Is it not their right? DAP claims to be a socialist party standing for social justice and you are the Secretary General of DAP. Where is the justice in your action? You had 2 PhDs in the room and a few lawyers in the room during these heart to heart meetings with the villagers, but these poor villagers were denied their lawyer. This is a gross violation of their rights. There were many points of law that were discussed and the poor villagers had no way of understanding all of that because you denied them their right?
8) After the meeting with the villagers on the 24th of July 2009 in your heart to heart meeting, did you not issue a public statement that you were immediately revoking the development order of the developer if they went ahead with the demolition of the village. You would not allow even one brick to be put up you said, did you not?
9) If so, how is it that the developer has gone ahead with the demolition and proceeding with his project and all you are doing now is to mop up for him with a group of the villagers. What does that publicly recorded statement mean?
10) You say you never gave any promise and never broke any promise, then what was that statement on the 24th of July – was it not a public promise and your inaction on that, is it not a break of that promise?
11) Did you not tell the villagers all through the 4 heart to heart meetings where they did not have their lawyers present that you would seek a declaration from the courts that the developer did indeed need state government consent for the demolition exercise per Section 116 1(d) of the national Land code, but you never did ?
12) Why did you mislead the villagers about this?
13) You set up a committee to investigate the “land robbery” as you called it with Dr.Mansor your DCM1 and Dr.Ramasamy your DCM2 to investigate the “robbery” along with a few others. What happened to the investigation? Did you actually perform the investigations or was it just another one of those VKLingam type of episode? If you had completed the invcestigations what is the outcome and what have you done about it all?
14) You are so convinced there was a land robbery, because you have said it so many times, how is it that you did not work with the villagers, who were saying the same thing and requesting you repeatedly to work with them, to bring to book the land robbers?
15) All you have done is issue statements about the previous governments complicity in this whole deal, but you have not taken any positive steps all these months to investigate and lay out the truth of the matter – something that would have been befitting a new people orientated government. Why have you not acted on the land robbery at all, yet?
There are many more questions that require answers from you, but these will suffice for this exercise. What will be needed in your response dear CM, is not a selective answering of the questions here, but a comprehensive response to all these questions.
Over to you YB.
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