SEVERAL residents under the ProtectKarpal - the Karpal Singh Drive action neighbourhood group lodged a complaint with the Penang Public Accounts Committee at the state legislative assembly today.
They are seeking an urgent inquiry into the now disused Jelutong landfill rehabilitation and coastal reclamation project.
The project comes under a joint development agreement between the state government, the Penang Development Corporation (PDC) and the appointed main contractor - the PLB Engineering Berhad.
The complaint was filed because public records show a sharp change in project scope: PLB’s 2016 revised tender proposal contained zero coastal reclamation.
But the 2020 agreement introduced “reclamation”, while the 2025 environmental impact assessment displayed a 70-acre reclamation component, said the group chairman, Dr K. Ganesh, who led a peaceful protest here.
To heighten their concern, the project's Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report was rejected on the fifth consecutive occasion by the Department of Environment (DOE), said Ganesh.
ProtectKarpal is also seeking a constitutional oversight body to investigate a RM 1 billion project that has accumulated at least seven extensions of time since 2020, failed five consecutive EIA, and may be seeking an eighth extension at the state executive council meeting by next week.
“For residents, this is not an abstract contract. It is about whether a promised rehabilitation will finally make their neighbourhood safer, or whether they will be left with more delay, more uncertainty and a reclamation project they were never asked to approve,” said Ganesh.
Ganesh said that the state should outright scrap the project and find alternative means to rehabilitate the project and to reject reclamation because it may hurt the Middle Bank seagrass marine sanctuary.
State executive councillor Lim Siew Khim was on hand to hear the resident's grouses.
The Opposition front, led by state Opposition Leader Muhammad Fauzi Yusoff, with other PAS backbenchers were present to provide support. - May 13, 2026.
