The Penang Parti Keadilan Rakyat wants the state government to disclose the findings of a probe into the alleged land scam involving the Indian traditional village located in Kampung Buah Pala.

State PKR chairperson Zahrain Md Hashim also wants the state government to take stern and punitive action on politicians who were behind the alleged scam.

kampung buah pala penang p ramasamy meeting 120609 05 He expressed confidence that the five-person probe team would complete its work soon.

Deputy Chief Minister 1 Mansor Othman heads the investigation team.

Zahrain said that the state government should be transparent and expose the politicians involved in the alleged scandal.

He said "We must punish the politicians, especially those from Umno, who cheated the villagers.

"What the Umno politicians have done is a daylight robbery?" Zahrain told Malaysiakini today.

He met the villagers on Sunday to convey the party's top leadership's "full support and commitment" to safeguard and convert Kampung Buah Pala to an Indian living cultural heritage village.

Anwar's promise

He informed the villagers that PKR supremo Anwar Ibrahim had vowed to do everything within his means to secure and protect the village for some 300 current residents.

"Anwar personally told me that PKR would fully back the people's wish to declare their ancestral land a heritage village," he said.

penang kampung buah pala 110609 04 The villagers, mostly Tamils , have lived in Kampung Buah Pala for almost 200 years.

It is the only Indian village in Penang and sits on a 6.4 acres of prime land in the heart of the rapidly developing eastern part of George Town.

The village was deemed a housing trust until 2005.

The land office then transferred ownership to the state before it was subsequently sold to a civil servants' cooperative - Koperasi Pegawai Kerajaan Pulau Pinang, for only RM3.12 million or RM11.33 per sq ft.

Plans were afoot flatten the village turn it into a mixed-development township by the Umno-linked Nusmetro Ventures.

Villagers allege that the local council had approved the plans to the developer even before the land was transferred from the state to the cooperative.

As this breached the municipality building laws, two MIC councillors objected to the plans and subsequent approval in 2007.

Objection rejected

However, the MIC's objection was rejected by the then state executive council.

penang kampung buah pala 110609 02 A former councillor, who did not want to be identified, said that the approval was granted despite the breach in the law as BN had the numerical advantage while other non-MIC councillors remained non-committed.

Zahrain said the state probe should expose the guilty party.

"We cannot blame businessmen for wanting to develop the available land. It is the politicians who are the ones who made the land available. They should be punished for betraying the people," he said.

He also said PKR would look into the suggestion by Hindraf leader P Uthayakumar who had said that the state government was empowered under the National Land Code 1965 and the Land Acquisition Act to obtain the land for the villagers.