Penang govt declassifies land conversion minutes

2009/11/21

PULAU PINANG: The Penang state government today declassified the minutes of the the state exco, state land committee and the Penang Development Corporation meetings (PDC) relating to 1.4 heactares of land in Georgetown whose status was changed from leasehold to freehold. The information, sent to the media via e-mail today, however did not answer the question raised by the Pulau Betong state assemblyman, Muhammad Farid Saad, alleging lying by Chief Minister Lim Eng Guan in the state assembly sitting in August relating to land policy introduced by the state government.

Instead, in a statement, Lim accused the Barisan Nasional (BN) and UMNO of making vile and baseless accusations.

He said the PDC Heritage Hotel Sdn Bhd (PHH) was a joint-venture company between PDC (49 per cent) and YTL Hotels & Properties Sdn Bhd (YTL H&P) (51 per cent).

He said based on a letter from YTL Corporation on May 9, 2007, the former Penang chief minister had agreed in principle on January 18, 2007 to convert to the land to freehold for PHH and on condition that the land was "for residence and business only".

He said the letter from PDC on July 17, 2007 asked PHH to make an application to convert the land to freehold. - Bernama