The Penang government is not sincere in enforcing the Freedom of Information Act (FOI), which came into force on Jan 1, 2015, Gerakan’s state legal bureau chief Jason Loo charged.

“Is the FOI only for show as the department staff do not seem to be prepared to enforce the Act?” he asked in George Town today.

“The Penang government is supposed to operate base on CAT (competency, accountability and transparency) principles, but it does not seem to be competent in this matter,” he added.

Loo visited the 25th floor in Komtar to check on the status of two applications under the FOI – agreements on reclamation in Bayan Bay and Bayan Mutiara which were inked under the current government.

Loo said that on Feb 2, Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng declared that he was disclosing the (details of the) agreements.

Lim’s decision came after an Umno motion at the state legislative assembly in November called for new reclamation projects to be halted.

On Feb 4, Loo visited the state secretary office – which handles matters related to FOI – to get hold of the two agreements.

“However, it is only today I am told that I need to sign a statutory declaration (SD) before the documents are released,” he said.

“It is unsatisfactory that the department which handles the FOI had not finalised the SD yet although the Act is already enforced last year,” he added.

Loo was also told to pay RM186 for the two documents and also RM1 for each page photo-copied.

He would have to fork out RM10 for every annexe or attachments, including maps or other related pages.

“The payment is simply too excessive for the public,” Loo said.

He said that after he submitted the application for the two documents, he received a notice a few days ago that his request was being “acted upon” (diambil tindakan) and that he would be notified in seven working days from date of application.

He added that the notice was a simple piece of notification which could have been given to him when the application for the documents was made on Feb 4.

“Yesterday was the last day of the seven working days, and since I am quite aggressive in pursuing this, I have come to check on the status of my applications,” he said.

“They (department staff) should have at least prepared the documents for photocopy as that is one of the procedures.

“I am not biased against the Penang government because I am in the opposition (BN) camp. It's just that I would like to urge the department to improve its customer service as the staff handling the FOI appear to be unaware about their duties,” he added.