Refer Chow to rights, privileges committee for misleading house: Gerakan

Penang Gerakan has called for state executive councillor Chow Kon Yeow to be referred to the State Assembly's Rights and Privileges Committee for misleading the House relating to the issue of pre-war heritage houses.

Its Youth assistant secretary, Loh Kit Mun said according to the written reply during the state assembly sitting in May, Chow had portrayed to Penangites and the House that in the Heritage Zone, only 18 houses had been sold to foreigners as of 2015.

"But Chow's figure is different from Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng's figure given during the recent (November) state assembly sitting, that 60 units were sold to foreigners from 2008 to May, 2014.

"I urge all the Penang assemblymen to move a motion for Chow, who is also state Local Government, Traffic Management and Flood Mitigation Committee chairman, to be referred to the Rights and Privileges Committee for providing deceiving and misleading data," he told a press conference, here, today.

Loh said Chow later claimed that the difference was due to two different questions posed and the 18 heritage units sold to foreigners from 2010 to 2015 were only in Section 23 of the Northeast district.

"The question by Mahmud Zakaria was on how many houses in the Heritage Zone were sold to foreigners, not in Section 23 as answered by Chow. Why when we asked on the Heritage Zone, the state government answered Section 23? Are they hiding anything from Penangites?"

He also questioned the state government's competency, accountability and transparency mantra, saying the information provided were misleading and the records given, incomplete.

However, Loh said, according to the Penang Island City Council, there were a total of 4,649 buildings in the core and buffer zone at the George Town Heritage Site.

He said it could be assumed now that a total of 78 houses or more in the Heritage Zone here were owned by foreigners since 2008.

"Stop providing contradicting figures, the people of Penang deserve to know the actual data on how many foreigners own our heritage houses," he added. - BERNAMA