poobalan.com

This is indeed a good news. It would have been better if the state published the location and for for who it was approved.

However, what surprises me is the claim by the EXCO Lau Weng San that this was in response to “demolition of the
19-year-old Sri Maha Kaliamman temple near Kampung Tasek Tambahan in
Ampang on Sept 11”. Is he talking about the approval or the quit rent and lease period?

I don’t this knee-jerk response is good. There’s bound to be complaints or problems with this kind of fast approvals. Unless of course, Lau was misquoted and the figures were for the period between March and October this year because Ronnie Liu at another press conference said that “so far 27 permits for places of worship, including churches, Hindu
temples and Chinese temples on government land, had been given since
the Pakatan Rakyat took over the state government”.

I fail to see how 27 places can be allocated at one time, so most likely Lau or the reporter got it wrong.

The owners of 27 plots of state land approved for
places of worship in Selangor need pay only RM1,000 quit rent for the
first year and a nominal RM1 for subsequent years.

Kampung Tunku
state assemblyman Lau Weng San said this was approved by the state
government, which had also agreed to give 99-year leases on the land.

The places of worship include churches and Hindu and Buddhist
temples, he said at a press conference at the Selangor DAP headquarters
in Taman Paramount here yesterday.

Councillors of local authorities and 27 Selangor DAP committee members were present.

Lau said the move was made in response to the demolition of the
19-year-old Sri Maha Kaliamman temple near Kampung Tasek Tambahan in
Ampang on Sept 11.

Of course, all this is nice to hear, but lets see if the buildings actually rises before giving more credit. For the beginning, its a good start.

Lau Weng San says:

Dear Poobalan,

You mention that I am an Exco. Well, I am not any Exco, I am just an ADUN. And the information and statement I mentioned in the press conference are not new stories. Those information and statement are repeated by our Exco several times. I am merely reiterate the facts, no more and no less.

I wish to clarify that the 27 pieces of lands were approved by the Exco several months ago. This is not a knee-jerk reaction in response to the demolition of the 19-year-old Sri Maha Kaliamman Temple in Ampang.

The reason why these 27 pieces of lands can be approved in one short, because these 27 applications are not new applications. These applications were either rejected, turned-down, cold-storaged during BN time. When the state government reviewed their applications, and discovered that these are genuine applications, there were approved. It is as simple as that, need not to speculate the reasons behind it.

Weng San

Posted on October 4th, 2008

poobalan says:

Dear YB Mr Lau,

My apologies for the mistake. I wrote EXCO instead of ADUN in the heat of the moment.

Thank you for the clarification. That means what Ronnie Liu said initially was correct and you explained how it could be approved at one go.

Problem is that I can’t verify that you are who you say you are, but I take it in good faith. I’ve emailed you using the email you provided, but again, its a free email address, so not an iron-clad evidence.

Thank you for dropping by.

Posted on October 5th, 2008

Lau Weng San says:

Thanks for publishing my comments. Just give us a word if there is anything you want to share with us.

Posted on October 6th, 2008

Killer says:

This is clearly a case of spin-doctoring and Poobalan we need to be careful on taking such news at face value.

First of all, the approval for state lands to be transferred to public use for religious purposes is neither simple or fast. In fact I don’t even think the exco can approved it since the local authorities and jabatans are the ones who handle these matters and NOT the exco. The role of exco is like cabinet, handling policy or regulatory matters.

Secondly, the news that these were approved months ago clearly not true at all. Had the state govt approved these applications months ago, I am sure Teresa, Ronnie and Xavier would have called for a mega press conference to trumphet it.

I would like to challenge Lau here (if he is really the real McCoy) to provide the evidence of that these applications were indeed approved several months ago.

Most likely these applications were just rushed through as a damage control mechanism and given blanket approval after this temple fiasco. I am pretty sure that none of the neccessary paper works and transfers have been done yet. If my statement is incorrect, Selangor exco, please prove me wrong.

BTW, can we have the details of these 27 cases ? I mean names of these places and locations ?

Posted on October 6th, 2008