Penang Free School, Kapitan Keling Mosque to be gazetted as national heritage sites

GEORGE TOWN, Oct 9 — Penang Free School, Kapitan Keling Mosque and the late P. Ramlee’s literary works will be listed as national heritage sites and items this October 17, Tourism, Culture and Arts Deputy Minister Muhammad Bakhtiar Wan Chik said today.

The two buildings and the late entertainer’s works are among 149 places and items on the national heritage list.

“It is not easy to gazette any place as a national heritage site as we need approvals from the respective states,” he said in a press conference after the opening of a National Archaeology Seminar here.

He said the federal government could not gazette a site as a national heritage site if the state government does not cooperate or does not give the necessary approval.

Earlier, in her speech, heritage commissioner Datuk Zainah Ibrahim said Malaysia has a total 965 archaeological sites where 822 are on land and 143 are under water.

“Out of these sites, only 13 are gazetted as national heritage sites and another eight are gazetted as heritage sites under the National Heritage Act 2005,” she said.

She said this is why the national heritage department is proposing to list 149 more places and items on October 17.

Muhammad Bakhtiar said the government is looking to increase the number of Unesco heritage sites in the country.

“We are looking at elevating another four sites in the country to Unesco sites,” he said.

He listed them as the Permatang Quartz National Park in Selangor, the Forest Reserve Institute Malaysia and the Royal Belum Forest.

“We still have challenges to overcome especially for the National Park as it involved three states,” he said.

Muhammad Bakhtiar said the federal government has spent 10 years trying to get the three states involved — Kelantan, Terengganu and Pahang — to approve and cooperate to apply for Unesco listing for the park.

“The other three should be on time as the states have been cooperative,” he said.

Malaysia currently has four Unesco sites: George Town and Melaka in a joint inscription, Lembah Lenggong, Kinabalu Park and Mulu National Park.

Earlier, the deputy minister said museums and archaeological sites can be promoted as archaeotourism destinations to attract quality tourists.

“We want to attract tourists from Europe, Korea and Japan so we need to look at improving and promoting our rich archaeological sites as potential tourist sites,” he said.