SUNGAI PETANI, 15 Dec 2008: The Home Ministry is considering legal action against the developer which failed to complete the construction of the Pendang and Yan district police headquarters.
Its minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar said failure to complete the RM55.7 million projects had forced the government to do replanning, resulting in the cost to go up to RM90 million.
However, he added, the construction of the two police district headquarters, each costing RM45 million, was expected to begin next year with injection of funds through the Private Financing Initiative.
“The ministry is reviewing the terms of the agreement and if there are strong grounds, we will take legal action for failure to complete the projects,” he told reporters after a briefing by the ministry’s officials on development projects for the Kedah police at the Kuala Muda traffic police office, here, today.
Under the privatisation programme, the Home Ministry handed over about 78 hectares of land to the developer in exchange of building three district police headquarters for Kuala Muda, Pendang and Yan.
Syed Hamid, however, declined to name the developer for the three projects which were approved under the Eighth Malaysia Plan.
The Pendang district headquarters project, costing RM29, is only 28% completed; the project (RM26.7 million) for Yan district did not even get off the ground, while the one (RM53.7 million) for Kuala Muda was only ready last year, more than two years’ late.
“I’m dissatisfied as these three projects worth RM109.4 involved a change of land ownership of 72 hectares while two of the projects are uncompleted and only 5.5 hectares could be taken back,” said Syed Hamid.
He said the ministry had lodged reports with the police and Anti-Corruption Agency over the uncompleted projects.
“Privatisation of projects is a good concept for speeding up development, but lessons must be learned from these mentioned uncompleted projects to prevent a recurrence,” he said.
Syed Hamid also said that efforts were being made to complete the Baling district police headquarters which was 97% ready in 2005 and then stalled.
“This cannot be allowed to go on as the repair cost will be high,” he said. — Bernama
