Penang willing to hand over transport master plan to Putrajaya

GEORGE TOWN: The Penang state government is willing to hand over the Penang Transport Master Plan (PTMP) to Putrajaya if the state Barisan Nasional (BN) can convince the prime minister to take over the project.
Penang local government and traffic management committee chairman Chow Kon Yeow said this is the sake of the state.
"If they say they want to take over in their campaign so that they can win the next general election, I say go ahead. They can continue to implement the whole project," he said at the South Reclamation Scheme (RS) EIA public viewing at Komtar today.
He said as the federal government did not implement the proposed LRT projects, the state had to proceed with its own plan.
He revealed that when the state presented the PTMP to Putrajaya, the federal government did not object.
"They were happy as it does not involved federal financing, and when it were present to the National Economic Council, no objection at all were raised," he said.
The state is applying bridging loan from China Exim Bank before the completion of the reclamation of three islands at the southern part of Penang island.
The Penang South Reclamation is to finance the massive RM 27 billion PTMP.
He said the federal government also had requested Penang to fine tune the proposal first and take into consideration of the explicit conditions laid down in Article 111(2) of the Federal Constitution.
"There were three conditions, the first is that the state has to pass an enactment to give the state power to obtain loan, the second is for the federal government to negotiate this with the National Finance Council and finally, that the loan must not be more than five years", he said.
Meanwhile, Chow told theSun that the state government has comply with all the technical requirements of the National Physical Plan Council (MPFN) on PTMP.
"We will ensure it will be incorporated, its already been submitted and the process is ongoing," he said.
"All this studies are done by experts in respective fields ,it will even be evaluated by the panel of expert also so we leave it to their expertise."
The RM27 billion PTMP is an ambitious undertaking to link Penang Island and the mainland with rail transit systems, new highways, trams, rapid bus routes and water taxis.