By Jaythaleela K
MIRI, Feb 1: Pujut assemblyman Dr Ting Tiong Choon calls on the state government to investigate the actual value of land upon which has been proposed to build Miri City Hall.
The site with a land size of 3.22 acres is in Marina Bay here.
On Wednesday, a private company that previously owned the land was compensated RM22.1 milion during a land acquisition compensation ceremony.
The project was amongst nine development and infrastructures projects in this division under the state government.
A total of RM31.6 million compensation was paid out to 30 landowners for the nine projects.
“The Second Urban Development and Natural Resources Minister, Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan who is also Deputy Chief Minister, should be responsible to investigate this issue…whoever did the evaluation, whether there is something wrong one way or the other, one of them is wrong if not both…,” Ting explained.
Ting said this at the Democratic Action Party (DAP) Miri office in Krokop here on Thursday morning.
He added, the state government really needed to be transparent with the public over the matter.
“Land is a valuable asset, but the state government sells it at a cheap price but buys it at an expensive price,” he said.
“I just want to confirm… they say the land that was acquired by the government is 3.22 acres…at the valuation of RM22.1 million, that is about RM7 million (per acre)…It is a good location no doubt about it, but I want to remind Awang Tengah, that when the state sold land in Tanjong Lobang five years ago to a private company, it was 7 or 8 acres …. The value was only RM3 to RM4 million…at that time, each acre sold for RM400,000 and now, not far from that area..the government buys for RM7 million per acre, more than 15 times the value (then),” he explained.
“I can’t imagine the land value in that four years (since 2013) can increase that much.”
He hoped Awang Tengah would respond to the issue.
“Otherwise I will take it further to investigate,” he said. — DayakDaily
