Penang executive councillor for housing Jagdeep Singh Deo revealed documents that the previous BN administration had rejected an application by the Federal Land Commission to acquire the Taman Manggis land for public housing.

The documents include excerpts of minutes of a meeting, dated March 28, 2007, and verified on April 4, 2007, showing that the state executive council turned down the application from the commission.

At a press conference in Komtar today, Jagdeep revealed that a state executive council meeting on Sept 28, 2005, minuted under item 16.3, stated that then state exco Teng Chang Yeow informed the council that one block of low-cost flats had already been developed on the land.

“He then proposed that the remaining plot of land, which faces Jalan Burmah, be used for mixed development which includes shoplots and government quarters,” Jagdeep said, reading out the minutes.

“During that meeting, then Penang Chief Minister Koh Tsu Koon said in view of the plot’s strategic location, the land could be tendered out to a private developer so that the state government would not need to bear the high cost of developing the land.

“The state secretariat was then asked to prepare a paper for the consideration of the state exco,” he revealed.

Jagdeep demanded an apology from Gerakan for misleading the public that the previous state government had planned to build housing for the poor on Taman Manggis.

He said minutes of meetings of the previous BN administration - which were declassified today - showed that the previous BN government had no intention of building public housing on the 1.1-acre plot of land along Jalan Zainal Abidin.

'They came out with guns blazing'

Gerakan, he said, had misled the public to think otherwise, with its party leaders ‘exposing’ a memo dated July 1, 2003, which stated that there was a proposal to develop the land, situated in front of Jalan Burmah, for public housing.

“They came out with guns blazing and misled the public that there was a proposal for public housing, and by implication, they are saying this was not carried out by this state government. But they themselves had rejected the proposal,” he asserted.

Taman Manggis came into the spotlight when the sale of the land - via an open tender chaired by the state secretariat - was linked to Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng's purchase of a bungalow unit on Jalan Pinhorn for RM2.8 million, which his opponents in BN claimed was below market price.

Umno's Tasek Gelugor MP Shabudin Yahaya, who raised the issue in Parliament on March 17, also accused Lim of corruption, questioning if the sale of the bungalow was linked the sale of the state government land to a private company.

Lim denied the allegations, saying the bungalow was purchased in 2015 on a willing seller-willing buyer basis from businesswoman Phang Li Koon, who had no business interest in the state government.