PENANG Local Government, Housing, Town and Country Planning Committee chairman Jagdeep Singh Deo has been directed to hold a meeting with the relevant departments and agencies to look into the recommendations stated in the State Commission of Inquiry (SCI) report.
Jagdeep and his team are to report back to the State Planning Committee (SPC) after a month.
Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow said he had instructed Jagdeep during the SPC meeting today to go through the recommendations that were directed at the state government and the local councils.
“The recommendations are pertaining to the ‘Safety Guideline for Hillsite Development 2012’, and other matters that the Commission had felt that the local councils should look into.
“The team, led by Jagdeep, will report back to the SPC on the proposed actions to be taken to improve the guideline and the processes,” he told a press conference today.
It was reported that the SCI had found that the Tanjung Bungah landslide on Oct 21, 2017, was a man-made tragedy in its probe. The report also stated that the incident was entirely preventable.
The 116-page report, which was made available to the media during a press conference yesterday (Aug 28), recommended that action to be taken against two engineers for negligence.
The report contained nine recommendations which served as the Commission’s hope that lessons learned from the unfortunate episode would not be in vain.
Penang Island City Council (MBPP) engineering director A. Rajendran said the MBPP had lifted the stop work order for the Tanjung Bungah housing project some time ago.
“We lifted the stop work order after they had finished all the mitigation works imposed on them. We will take other measures based on the SCI report,” he said.
Rajendran said the two engineers in question had been changed.
Story by Christopher Tan
Pix by Noor Siti Nabilah Noorazis
Video by Darwina Mohd Daud