Penang says will ask concessionaires to waive secrecy in land reclamation deals

Lim claimed that the concession agreements for the reclamation projects are worth 'tens of billions' so the state needed time to look through the agreements. — Picture by K.E. Ooi

GEORGETOWN, Dec 15 — Penang will ask land reclamation project concessionaires here to forego the confidentiality of their agreements in order to declassify the documents, Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said.

The Penang lawmaker, who was under pressure from the civil society groups and political opponents over the number of land reclamation projects in the state, said the agreements signed by the previous administration included confidentiality clauses that stopped him from releasing their contents without permission.

"We don't have the power to instruct them to waive their rights under the confidentiality clauses because they are protected by the agreements," Lim said.

He claimed these concession agreements for the reclamation projects are worth "tens of billions" so the state needed time to look through the agreements.

"Let the legal advisor look through these agreements first, write to the concessionaires and by January we should have the answer but worse comes to worse, we will declassify agreements approved by our administration first," he said in a press conference at his office today.

Yesterday, Penang Barisan Nasional Chairman Teng Chang Yeow told the state government to instruct the land reclamation concessionaires to waive their rights under the confidentiality clause.

Teng pointed out that back in 2007, then prime minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had declassified highways agreements after instructing the concessionaires to waive their rights under the confidentiality clause.

He said Penang could similarly instruct the land reclamation concessionaire, E&O Bhd, to waive its rights instead of making an about turn on the state's decision to declassify all these agreements.

Today, Lim said Teng was either ignorant or feigning ignorance of the law by making such a suggestion, especially when the agreements were approved by the previous BN administration.

He also accused Teng of trying to blame him and the current administration for the confidentiality clauses approved by BN, saying the latter should explain as he was a state exco member when the deals were signed.

He added that the state wants to declassify all land reclamation agreements, both approved by BN and the current administration, but they needed time to go through the confidentiality clauses.

Lim has accused the previous BN state government of approving a total 3,241 acres of land reclamation projects for the state while the current administration approved only 60 acres.

When pressured to cancel the previously approved projects, Lim claimed it could bankrupt the state government as compensation could go up to RM1 billion.

Gerakan and the civil society have been pressuring Lim to reveal the concession agreements to prove that cancelling those projects would lead to RM1 billion in compensation payments.

This article first published in The Malay Mail - 16 Dec 2015