Call for independent body on landslide tragedy

GEORGE TOWN: Penang Federal Action Council chairman Datuk Seri Zainal Abidin Osman has urged the state government to set up an independent body to check all hillslope development projects in Penang.
Zainal Abidin said the body is needed to audit all the hillslope development projects in the state now, because the state Department of Environment (DOE) had revealed that the state government still had given approval to the 50-floor affordable housing project, although the DOE did not support it.
"I wonder what the state government's reasons are to approve the project on Feb 10, 2015, since the DOE did not support it," he said in a press statement today. "It is not supposed to approve a project if it does not obtain all technical departments' supports."
Zainal Abidin stated that the state government should take responsibility and be accountable for the tragedy, which took 11 lives.
He added that the tragedy was not an ordinary accident at a construction site.
"The state government should stop its blaming games on this matter. The DAP has led the state government administration (for) more than nine years now. They should learn to be a responsible government," he declared.