Penang chief minister says MCA’s Wee Ka Siong is trying to confuse people about the company’s role in developing Penang’s undersea tunnel and three highways.
He said Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Wee Ka Siong was trying to confuse people by making it seem that the firm would be constructing the infrastructure.
He said the outfit directly involved in the construction was China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC).
“How is it possible that a fashion company can build roads? Let us not belittle ourselves,” he said at a press conference here today.
On Jan 13, Wee, who is MCA deputy president, had asked the state government to explain why the local fashion company was listed as a shareholder in Consortium Zenith Construction Sdn Bhd which was awarded the project.
He said checks by MCA had revealed that Voir Holdings held the most shares in Consortium Zenith, while 39% were held under nominees.
He also said the DAP-led state government had announced in early 2013 that stakes in the SPV would go to two Chinese construction giants, backed by RM4.6 billion in paid-up capital.
Consortium Zenith chairman Zarul Ahmad Mohd Zulkifli is also chairman of Voir Holdings.
Lim said the state did not interfere in the structure of the SPV’s shareholders as it was a matter for the private investors.
He said just because the finance ministry had acquired a 51% stake in the developer of the Exchange 106 skyscraper at the Tun Razak Exchange project, it did not mean that the ministry was building the structure.
“We know they are just investing. They are neither contractors nor developers,” he said.
Lim also distributed copies of the contract for the highway projects signed in 2016, between the Penang government and Consortium Zenith as well as Beijing Urban Construction Group (BUCG).
BUCG was however taken off the project in September that year after it was found to be responsible in an accident along Jalan Raja Chulan, Kuala Lumpur, in which a woman was killed after a crane hook at a construction site fell on her car.
Lim said the tender for the projects was granted by the state tender committee, headed by state secretary Farizan Darus. He said neither he nor the state executive councillors sat in this committee.
The three highways are from Air Itam to Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu Expressway (5.7km), Tanjung Bungah to Teluk Bahang (10.53km), and Jalan Pangkor-Gurney Drive junction to Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu Expressway (4.1km).
The 7.2km undersea tunnel will connect George Town’s Jalan Pangkor to Bagan Ajam in Butterworth on the mainland. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2023.
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