GEORGE TOWN, Jan 9 ― The feasibility report for the undersea tunnel has been delayed for 21 months and there is still no sign of it being completed, Penang Gerakan claimed today.
Its acting Youth chairman Jason Loo said the state government had delayed the report many times, way past its due date of April 30, 2016.
“The delay is very unusual as it has been dragged again and again, the state government already paid RM208 million for it by way of land swapping,” he said.
He claimed the private developer is already promoting and selling luxury condominium units on the lands alienated to them in the land swap deal.
“This shows that the DAP state government is helping the rich at the expense of Penangites by selling our lands,” he said.
The RM6.3 billion undersea tunnel and three paired roads project was awarded to Consortium Zenith in 2013 and they were given until April 30,2016 to complete the feasibility report.
Loo said the state government revealed that the report was 83 per cent completed in June 2016 and promised that it will be completed by the end of 2016.
“It did not happen and in April 2017, the chief minister said it was 87 per cent completed and promised that it will be completed in six months and yet, the deadline has passed,” he said.
He said the state again revealed that the feasibility report are at 92.9 per cent last October, but claimed that there is no urgency to complete it now as the project will not start anytime soon.
“I don’t understand why it’s being delayed again and again especially when RM208 million was paid for the RM305 million feasibility report,” he said.
Last October, Consortium Zenith Construction Sdn Bhd chairman Datuk Zarul Ahmad Mohd Zulkifli said there was no need to submit the feasibility studies just yet as the project was only projected to start six years later.
Zarul said completing the feasibility studies will incur more costs that the company has to bear as the state government is yet to pay for it.
He stressed that the payment for the whole RM6.3 billion undersea tunnel and three paired roads project was by land swap so all costs are currently born by the consortium first.
