Chow Kon Yeow: 曹观友

Phantom members and voters are nothing new in Malaysian politics.

Yesterday, I saw a stack of letters at my office and found out that these are letters returned to the sender because the mails cannot be delivered to the address.

On examination, I noted that the sender of these letters was the Parti Gerakan Penang headquarters and the postman must have wrongly returned those letters to the DAP instead of the rightful receipent.

All the 14 letters were sent to a single address along Jalan Tanjong Tokong.

I think all of them are phantom members of the local Gerakan branch. I am more interested to find out whether they are also phantom voters planted by the Gerakan in the previous elections or for the coming general elections.

The DAP had in the past accused the Gerakan of manufacturing phantom voters in their constituencies. One classic example was found in the address of Dr Teng Hock Nan where about ten persons with different surnames and ethnic background were found to have registered as voters. Another one was in Rifle Range Flats where more than 30 persons were found registered as voters in a tiny cubicle unit.

Gerakan had remained silence over the DAP’s exposure.

Well, with the finding of these 14 letters, I think Gerakan is still manufacturing phantom members and voters so that someone like Dr Koh Tsu Koon, Dr Teng Hock Nan could be returned as Gerakan state leaders and to elected offices like the Chief Minister.

Penang Chief Minister Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon should be shameful in that since taking over the post in 1990, he has done little to complete the Komtar development project .

Komtar may one day be listed in the Guiness Book of Records as the project that take half a century to complete. Launched in the early 1970s, this urban renewal project was meant to showcase Gerakan’s achievement in running Penang.

Although the Tower podium and shopping arcade were completed within the first decade, development of other phases of the project were either sold to private investors or left to rot till today.

Anyone passing through Magazine Road, Maxwell Road and Prangin Market areas would be shocked to see the rotten sides of the Pearl of Penang.

Tsu Koon has an office up in Level 28 in Komtar but he seems oblivious to the state of affairs below his office.

I am not wrong to say Tsu Koon has not add a new piece of brick onto the Komtar project.

Hotel Shangrila, Prangin Mall and the abandoned Metrojaya Complex and the Lion Group projects are all undertaken by the private sectors not the Penang Development Corporation. Infact lands acquired from the rakyat were sold to these private developers. This indeed is a betrayal.

I visited the area yet again yesterday morning and I can only say if Tsu Koon is unable to do anything to Komtar, then let the new Chief Minister complete the project within one term of office.