Penang to seek help from foreign weather experts

GEORGE TOWN: Penang will seek the expertise of meteorological authorities from other countries to help it come up with a comprehensive early weather warning system.

Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said the state’s Green Council, which has been entrusted with this task, plans to engage other meteorological authorities in the region so that it can formulate its module on how best to provide an early warning system.

During the recent devastating floods, Lim had singled out the Malaysian Meteorological Services Department for its alleged lateness in issuing warnings to the people here about the impending arrival of a torrential rainstorm.

Lim said this after China had offered its expertise to Penang for the early warning system, saying the nation has a system in place to warn people about typhoons.

China’s consul-general in Penang, Wu Jun, made the offer after handing out RM62,400 to the state government’s flood relief fund at the Penang Development Corporation.

The sum was collected from the people in China’s Hainan province.

In another matter, Lim accused the state opposition, led by Datuk Jahara Hamid, of playing politics over the issue of landslides and floods in Penang.

Jahara led a walkout of nine Barisan Nasional backbenchers from the State Legislative Assembly sitting on Tuesday after the state government chose to amend a motion submitted earlier to ban hillslope development projects.

Lim said at least in Penang, the state allowed for the motion to be heard whereas in Parliament, none of the Opposition’s attempts to file motions was accepted.

“They (the opposition) are just playing politics.

“We amended the motion to reflect goodwill on our part but they refused to accept it.”

Jahara said although the amended motion was legally binding, the state was morally wrong to hijack the process by amending the motion in the first place.

The opposition’s motion was to stop all existing hillslope projects pending a review, whereas the amended version by the state, called for a joint federal and state committee to investigate such projects.