Chow Kon Yeow: 曹观友

DAP objects to ‘cloned’ voters — Star 17.1.2008

THE state Election Commission office has been asked to explain why some postal voters are listed under constituencies where they are no longer living in.

State DAP chairman Chow Kon Yeow said the supplementary electoral roll for the fourth quarter of 2007, which he received on Tuesday, showed that over 300 postal voters were still listed under the Second Division Army Base at Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah.

“The base was relocated to Bukit Gedung in early 2007. So the postal voters should not be voting in Tanjong or Padang Kota anymore,” he said during a press conference outside the state Election Commission office at Komtar yesterday.

He said he first discovered the problem in November last year and had referred the matter to the Prime Minister’s Department minister Datuk Seri Nazri Abd Aziz.

“The EC is aware of the problem in Tanjong and Padang Kota and has promised to look into it. But nothing has been done.

“I believe other DAP MPs are also having the same problem,” said Chow, who is also Tanjong Member of Parliament.

Chow also said after he studied the electoral roll, he learned that there were 334 new postal voters in Padang Kota while 350 had been transferred out.

“The figures are fine except 312 voters in the two groups are the same people. The EC needs to explain how it is possible for these 312 postal voters to be in and out of the constituency at the same time,” he said.

Chow said if the EC could not promise an untainted and fair election, it would lose credibility and the people’s confidence.

He added that he would be submitting his protest forms regarding the postal voters after studying the issue more closely.

One elevator for 1,000 flat dwellers

By DAVID TAN (Star 2 April 2007)

ALTHOUGH there are three elevators at the Taman Manggis low-cost flats at Jalan Zainal Abidin in Penang, some 1,000 residents there are only using one elevator daily.

This is because the control panels for the other lifts were stolen five months ago.

Tanjung MP Chow Kon Yeow said without the control panels, the residents could not operate the elevators.

“There is currently only one elevator left with the control panels intact and functioning,” he said when visiting the low-cost flats.

“The residents have complained to the state Housing Department, which is responsible for the maintenance of the building.

“However, no action has been taken so far to replace the panels. The residents have also lodged police reports,” he said. (more…)

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.