GEORGE TOWN: Persatuan Aliran Kesedaran Negara (Aliran) has called on the state government to abandon its plan to reclaim land to build three artificial islands off the southern coast of Penang island.
The Department of Environment (DoE) had recently approved the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the controversial project, subject to 71 conditions.
The supporters of the project had planned to start the work later this year after the approval of an Environmental Management Plan (EMP). However, local fisherfolk have vowed to continue their opposition.
According to the Aliran executive committee, the rationale for the 1,800-hectare reclamation has changed.
In 2015, the Penang government selected the Gamuda-led SRS Consortium as its "project delivery partner" to execute the RM46 billion worth of transportation infrastructure projects under SRS's "Penang Transport Master Plan" (PTMP) proposal, it said.
This, it said, was vastly different and more expensive than what an earlier Halcrow consultant had recommended in its transport blueprint.
It also noted that the proponents of the SRS proposal justified the PTMP by saying it would be self-financing.
"They claimed no public funds would be required other than small bridging loans for working capital, as the sales of reclaimed land would be enough to finance the transport projects.
"Under phase one, the state government was supposed to sell reclaimed land from Islands A and B to raise funds to finance the RM10 billion single-line Penang International Airport-Komtar elevated light rail system and the ecologically risky RM9 billion Pan Island Link highway. (Island C would be reclaimed in phase two.)
"But that financing model has flopped big time. The damp property market and the slower pace of reclamation means Island A (or part of it) will generate only a few billion ringgit in net surplus from land sales in the near future.
"This will clearly not be enough to finance the transport projects under SRS' PTMP phase one," it said in a statement.
Aliran said that as a result, the state government was now reduced to "begging" the federal government for funds for the RM10 billion light rail project, while there is little news about the Pan Island Link highway.
"Given this, the massive reclamation should be scrapped as it does not serve its original objective of raising funds to finance the SRS PTMP," the statement read.
Instead, Aliran said the massive 1,800 hectares three-island project appeared to be more of a property play for selected contractors and developers.
"This was what critics had predicted when the proposal was first mooted.
"Meanwhile, the official rhetoric has quietly shifted: the reclamation is now no longer about raising funds for transport projects.
"Instead, it is now supposed to provide land to boost the Penang economy. But then, there is still plenty of land on mainland Penang," it added.
Aliran said environmental non-governmental organisation, Sahabat Alam Malaysia, in its recent statement, had already highlighted the real ecological concerns over the three islands.
"There is no need to repeat them. Suffice to say, the impact on climate change, the loss of fish-breeding grounds and the consequence for food security are serious.
"Given this ecological cost and the fact that the original rationale for the reclamation is no longer applicable, Aliran urges the Penang government to drop the three-island project," it said.
On Wednesday, Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow announced that Penang had finally obtained the EIA approval for the controversial Penang South Islands (PSI) reclamation project, which came with 71 conditions to be fulfilled.
He also said that any reclamation works would only begin after the Environmental Management Plan approval had been obtained, which was expected in the third quarter of this year.
Environmental groups and fisherfolk expressed dismay that the EIA had been approved.
They claimed that all the concerns they raised over the years had came to nothing and had called the DoE to make the grounds of the decision transparent.
Fishermen, who objected to the reclamation project since it was first introduced back in 2015, scored a moral victory when they won an appeal to revoke the EIA approval of the controversial project in 2021.
This came after a preliminary objection by Zakaria Ismail, head of the fishermen's unit of Sungai Batu, was allowed and approval by the DoE on the PSI's EIA was set aside.
The EIA was deemed by the court as ultra vires, null and void of Section 34A(4)(a) of the Environmental Quality Act 1974.
The Penang government subsequently submitted a new EIA for approval.