Malaysia: Task force to defend Pengerang residents’ rights

The Star 24 Sep 12;

JOHOR BARU: PAS has set up a task force to defend the rights of the Penggerang residents involved in the Rapid project located within the proposed Pengerang Integrated Petroleum Complex (PIPC).

The party’s vice-president Salahuddin Ayob said that he would head the taskforce known as Mantap and he would act as a watchdog for the project to ensure the rights of the 25,000 people affected by the project were taken care of.

“We are not against development in the area but we want the people to be treated fairly when it comes to compensation, relocation of their homes and cemetaries, their livelihood and their future.

“We will set up an operations room in Pengerang and will work with non-governmental groups to raise this issue nationally, at parliament and even internationally,” he said, adding that they would also be working with Greenpeace on the matter.

He said some 10 NGOs were willing to work with them and he hoped to have a dialogue with Mentri Besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman as well as officers from the State Economic Planning Unit (UPEN) about the project.

“We want the state government to have a proper action plan as people are already being forced to evict their homes, especially in Sungai Kapal, to make way for the project,” he said, adding that the first phase was to build a power station for the project.

On the matter, UPEN director Elias Hasran said the Johor government did not issue eviction notices to villages affected by the PIPC project.

He advised the villagers to ignore the rumours as they were not legally binding.

He added that residents affected by the project would be relocated to the new resettlement scheme Taman Bayu Permai on a 156.61ha site which would be ready by March next year.

At another event, Salahuddin presented a personal donation to the family of lorry driver P Chandran who died while under police custody in Kuala Lumpur early this month.

His brother Gunalan alleged that the police refused to allow any family members to meet 47-year-old Chandran when he was arrested on Sept 6.