GUARANTEE LANDS RESERVED FOR PUBLIC PURPOSE

By : DATUK YONG TECK LEE

ALL THAT the people want is for the Chief Minister to guarantee that the High Court, Library and adjoining lands in down town City Centre will be permanently reserved for public purpose

On the issue of protecting the High Court land and adjoining lands for public purpose after the relocation of the court buildings to Bukit Punai, Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Dr. Yee Moh Chai claims that I mislead the people, saying that no development plan has been submitted to the City Hall.

Yee further said that the land is under the jurisdiction of the federal government and that the State Government offers a new site at Bukit Punai to the federal government to build a new court house "since the present High Court building was undergoing renovation".

Dr. Yee's flimsy explanation shows that he is either sleeping in his job or has a hidden agenda.

Everybody knows that by the time the developer submits the development plan to DBKK for approval, it would be already too late to save the land for public purpose because, by then, the company would have acquired legally binding rights over the land.

Dr. Yee should ask himself - did the KL developer of the 59.21-acre State Railway reserve land at Kapayan submit any development plan to City Hall first or was the company granted land rights before the plan was submitted to the City Hall?

It is also ridiculous for Yee to say that a new court house will be built at Bukit Punai "since the present High Court building was undergoing renovation." Does Dr. Yee mean that after the renovations of the existing High Court building, then the High Court will be re-located back again from Bukit Punai?

This is the same kind of nonsense like the relocation of the City Library which was supposed to make way for the High Court.

But later it was revealed that the High Court too will be moved away instead. This was only made known to the public by ex-Chief Minister Tan Sri Harris Salleh on 20 June and confirmed by Chief Minister Datuk Musa Aman on 22 June this year. So, what will happen to both the High Court land and the library land?

What kind of wakil rakyat for Api Api is Dr. Yee- when both the City Library and the High Court in his constituency are relocated, and yet this 9-year minister, 14-year assemblyman has no idea what is happening in his constituency right under his nose? Is he sleeping on his job? Or does he have a hidden agenda?

Why should Dr. Yee hide behind the "federal jurisdiction over the land"? Is the State government not going to exchange the Bukit Punai state land for the existing High Court federal land?

Or, for that matter, what is there to stop the government from revoking the High Court reserve land in the same way it had done with the State Railways reserve land at Kapayan and alienated it to the private developer company?

What is so difficult for the Minister cum wakil rakyat to promise that the lands - High Court, Library, DBKK building and car park, the Women and Children Clinic and the Chong Thien Vun Park will be protected for public purpose? If there is no development plan today, it does not mean that there will be no development plan in the future or the day after the general elections, if this same government is re-elected.

All that the people want is for the Chief Minister to guarantee that the High Court, Library and adjoining lands in down town City Centre will be permanently reserved for public purpose.

The people's memories are still fresh over the proposed plans to relocate the KK Central market and the issue of the Atkinson Clock Tower. It is reliably learnt that the high rise commercial project adjoining the Atkinson Tower will be restarted after the coming general elections.

If not for the heritage conservation status granted to the Atkinson Tower in 1997/98 under the Cultural Heritage Conservation Enactment 1997, the Atkinson Clock Tower would have disappeared.

(NOTE : Datuk Yong Teck Lee is SAPP President, Ex-Chief Minister 28 May 1996 to 27 May 1998)