Penang Umno hits out at state govt over land sale

GEORGE TOWN: Penang Umno has lashed out at the state government over the high revenue generated from the sale of state land to the private sector.

Its chairman Datuk Seri Zainal Abidin Osman said this was revealed in the second series of the 2016 Auditor-General’s Report.

He said revenue obtained from land premiums between 2012 and 2016 was RM1.55bil, while quit rent and change of land use premiums contributed RM768.46mil. This added up to RM2.32bil in revenue from land-related matters, he said.

Zainal said the revenue breakdown by year was RM491.87mil in 2016, RM518.51mil (2015), RM464.83mil (2014), RM463.27mil (2013) and RM382.56mil (2012).

He said the revenue was then used to finance the state’s operating expenditure that increased by more than 500% since 2008.

“We are baffled by why the Chief Minister still refuses to admit that they had been selling state land although the Auditor-General’s Report has confirmed the exposure made by Umno,” he said in a statement yesterday.

Zainal said he expected the revenue from land sale to be bigger than the figures as the state government had offered land buyers to pay by instalments. For development allocation, Zainal said a total of RM346.12mil was allocated for 2,868 projects last year.

He said the state government had claimed that RM307.45mil or 88.8% of it was spent, but the AG’s Report showed that RM73.61mil was transferred from the Development Vault to the state Finance Department’s trust fund.

As such, he claimed only 67.6% of the allocation was spent last year.

“The Penang government needs to explain why such a huge sum of the development allocation of 32.4% was not spent.

“According to the AG’s Report, as many as 40 projects were cancelled, nine were delayed and another declared ‘sick’ under the Chief Minister’s Office and State Secretariat Office.

“These two offices were given the largest allocation in the 2016 Development Budget,” he said.

He also questioned if the state government had intentionally presented a budget with a huge allocation for development with intent to confuse.

“When the projects were not carried out, the money was not spent, resulting in surpluses. The state will then say it was from the state’s open tender policy,” he said.

In response, Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng denied the accusations, saying the total land sale from 2012 to 2016 amounted to RM939.2mil, which was 22% of the total state revenue of RM4.22bil.

“The state government recorded a sale of 106 acres (42.89ha) and obtained a land sale revenue of RM939.2mil.

“Of the figure, we gave RM500mil to the Penang Development Corporation for the affordable housing fund.

“For the record, the state under Barisan Nasional collected a total of RM1.0586bil through the sale of 3,661acre (1,481.5ha) of land.

“On the other hand, the state government today sold 106.1 acres (42.9ha) of land, but obtained higher revenue at RM1.1102bil,” he said in a Facebook post.