He said the state had promised that two pieces of land would be used to build these schools — one a secondary national school in Tambun and the other a Chinese school in Bercham.

“They had agreed to this after I had brought this matter up in the state assembly during my time as an assemblyman here.

“But I have recently received information that the status of the land has been changed to commercial use. This means no schools can be built on it.

“We want to know why they have been hiding this information from us,” Cheong said at a press conference at the Bercham DAP office here today.

“This cannot be accepted. The government knows about the proposals for the new schools.

“We are asking MBI to cancel the change of status of the land and return it back to its original purpose for building schools.”

M Kulasegaran, Ipoh Barat DAP candidate for the upcoming election, said it was highly irresponsible for the state government not to inform the MP and assemblyman of such a decision on the land.

“I urge the city council to give an extension of time to object to the proposal to change the status of the land as the time allotted to challenge the decision ended today.

“The local assemblyman and MP were not informed about this matter.

“We have the duty to tell our constituents about such matters but the 21 days to object ends today without the elected representatives being notified about it,” he said.

“The priority should be for local needs. We already have an abundance of land for commercial use.”

Kulasegaran also said that if PH takes over the state government after GE14, it will immediately stop this land conversion.

FMT is trying to get comments from MBI and the state government on this matter.