Chow Kon Yeow: 曹观友

The Strata Title Act will be amended to meet the needs of new housing concept like gated community schemes. An amendment bill has been tabled for first reading this morning.

Section 6 of the present Act will be amended to enable multi storey buildings or two or more buildings having not more than four storeys on the same lot to be subdivided into land parcels for the issue of strata titles

Good news for old buildings without strata titles. Subsection 9(1) of the Act will be amended to allow for an application to be made to obtain strata titles for buildings which have been classified as special buildings. These buildings have been occupied before June 1996 but applications for strata titles could not be made as either the buildings have not been issued with CFO or the building plans are lost or destroyed.

The new Commissioner of Buildings will also be empowered to decide on the amount of contributions payable to the management corporations.

UEM has just been given a letter of intent for the Second Penang Bridge and has not shown how the project will be financed. Yet Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Penang Chief Minister Dr Koh Tsu Koon could not wait any longer to perform the ground breaking in Batu Kawan last month. Just another publicity stunt.

NST: Wednesday 6.12.2006-Up to UEM to pick contractors for Second Penang Bridge job

CONTRACTORS for the Second Penang Bridge will be appointed by UEM Buiders Bhd.

This is because the project has been privatised, Deputy Works Minister Datuk Mohd Zin Mohamed said.

He said this to a supplementary question on contracts to Bumiputera contractors from the project.

Mohd Zin said that while it was entirely up to the company to choose its contractors, the ministry would prefer that UEM used more local contractors.

To another supplementary question by Chow Kon Yeow (DAP-Tanjong) on the amount of toll the public would have to pay when using the second bridge, he said it had not been decided yet.

“We have just issued the letter of intent to UEM. At this moment, they are coming up with a comprehensive report on the architecture and the technical aspects of the bridge,” he added.

“This would then be presented to the government.”