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Saturday 15 December 2012

Monorail for Penang? Thanks, but no thanks, Najib

Why is Putrajaya so keen on monorail for Penang and why is the state government so receptive to this offer?The Penang Forum Steering Committee, however, considers the PM’s pledge of a monorail for Penang as an election gimmick. 
 
The Penang state government needs to be more circumspect about the type of development it allows for Penang. Not all federal projects or mega projects are good for Penang, as we have seen. We need to raise more questions – like why does the federal government need to spend RM780m of public money to upgrade 13km of roads near the second Penang Bridge?

This is the Penang Forum Steering Committee’s response to Najib’s offer:
Dear PM,
Thank you for taking the time in your busy schedule to come to Penang. We do realise that pre-election campaigning is necessary but may we clue you in a little about Penang people? Winning our hearts and minds involves not closing our roads and causing us great inconvenience while waiting for your motorcade to whiz by. It involves not enticing us with affordable housing only if BN wins and it involves not asking us to believe that UDA will not continue to renege on all their promises for Tanjung Tokong villagers as they have done for the last 20 years.

And most importantly it involves not throwing the monorail at us as an election gimmick. If you really cared about Penang, you would check with Penang people if this is what they want and need, you would investigate how the monorail idea came about to start off with. It was also thrown at Penang during BN times, without either public consultation or checking on suitability. It then had the highest ‘crony connections’ as it probably still has today.

Full letter on Penang Forum website.

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