Ramasamy tells under-fire Kon Yeow to suspend the Byram Industrial Park deal
SEBERANG PERAI, Oct 10 Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow should suspend the controversial Byram Industrial Park deal between Penang Development Corporation (PDC) and UMECH Land Sdn Bhd, P. Ramasamy said today.
The former deputy chief minister II said Chow, as the PDC chairman, should do the right thing now due to the current controversy surrounding the project.
“I still believe that Chow can rectify this and do the right thing,” he said in a press conference at Wisma Tamilar Kural Malaysia here.
The former Perai assemblyman said Chow should admit that he had made a mistake in the land deal, but as PDC chairman and chief minister, he could still suspend the deal and investigate the matter.
He also said Chow should also suspend those in PDC that were involved in the deal, claiming that the state has been shortchanged in this deal.
Ramasamy said there were so many questions raised regarding the deal, and Chow can no longer blindly defend the deal as it will become more indefensible should he remain defensive.
In Chow’s statements regarding the land deal dated October 3rd and yesterday, he mentioned that a subcommittee consisting of the then deputy chief minister I, deputy chief minister II, Datuk Abdul Halim Hussain and Datuk Seri Lee Kah Choon had discussed the deal in a meeting on November 28th last year.
Ramasamy reiterated the points mentioned in his joint statement with Lee yesterday that the subcommittee meeting held on November 28th was not a due diligence exercise to sell the land to UMECH Construction Sdn Bhd.
“I was a member of the subcommittee and the meeting mentioned was not to negotiate and scrutinise the land sale to UMECH Construction but to obtain further information from the company,” Ramasamy said.
He also stressed that the subcommittee did not make any recommendations that the land be sold to UMECH.
He pointed out that the discussions regarding the project were with UMECH Construction, but questioned why the finalised land deal was between PDC and UMECH Land Sdn Bhd.
He also claimed that Sunway Group obtained 70 per cent shares of UMECH Land before the Byram Industrial Park deal with PDC was signed but the state government, Chow and PDC were not aware of this.
“The 559 acres of land in Byram was sold at RM26.53 per sq ft when based on information from my sources, the value of raw land there is around RM80 per sq ft,” he said.
He said the state has always maintained that it is short of industrial land and yet this land was sold off at below market value.
“This is an acquired land, it was acquired decades ago from the previous landowner for public purposes, PDC was supposed to develop the land and not sell it for others to profit from it,” he said.
The issue of the Byram Industrial Park’s direct award to UMECH Land by PDC was first raised by the Penang Chinese Chamber of Commerce (PCCC) last week after its president Datuk Seri Hong Yeam Wah reportedly demanded to know why the deal was not done through open tender.
He had also alleged that the land was sold to UMECH for RM646.02 million which the chamber claimed was significantly below the value of the land.
In his statement responding to PCCC, Chow said the project was awarded to UMECH after a business matching exercise at EXPO Dubai 2020.
Yesterday, Ramasamy and Lee issued a joint statement calling out Chow for his misleading statement regarding the November 28th subcommittee meeting that was held to discuss the land deal.
Chow responded by stating that the PDC Board of Directors had held meetings to discuss the project on August 19th (2022), October 28th (2022), December 8th (2022), February 9th (2023) and April 11th (2023), while the subcommittee meeting on November 28th was part of the due diligence process.
