Protect Karpal Singh Drive, which operates under the Bandar Sri Pinang residents’ association, made the call in a memorandum submitted outside the state assembly today.
Its representative, Dr K Ganesh, said PAC should examine the agreement, the repeated extensions granted to PLB, and how reclamation was added to the original project scope.
The group said PLB’s original 2016 tender did not include reclamation works, but a 2025 environmental impact assessment (EIA) later revealed a 70-acre reclamation component.
It said the central concern was not only the RM1 billion project cost, but how the project had changed over time and who approved those changes.
Today’s memorandum handover comes ahead of a state executive council meeting on May 20, when PLB’s request for another extension is expected to be discussed.
Local government, town and country planning committee chairman Jason H’ng previously said that no decision had been made on whether to proceed with the project or terminate it.
He said PLB applied for an extension after the environment department (DoE) rejected its EIA report on March 2 and told the company to resolve several technical issues.
In its memorandum to chief minister Chow Kon Yeow, Protect Karpal Singh Drive also called for all DoE rejection letters to be made public, for Middle Bank to be gazetted as a marine sanctuary, and for the state to honour Chow’s earlier pledge not to grant further extensions if EIA approval was not obtained by Feb 26 this year.
The group also submitted a separate memorandum to Fauzi Yusoff, urging opposition assemblymen to continue raising the issue in the state assembly and PAC.
State executive councillor Lim Siew Khim received the memorandum on behalf of the state government, while Fauzi and several Perikatan Nasional assemblymen came out to meet the residents.
Residents and environmental groups have said that reclaiming land next to the landfill could affect public health due to the construction of facilities to process waste, in addition to harming the nearby Middle Bank marine ecosystem.
The RM1 billion reclamation plan involves digging up the landfill and reclaiming adjacent coastal land north of the Penang bridge to temporarily dump the unearthed waste, after which a mixed development will be carried out on the reclaimed land.
The 65ha project site comprises 36ha of landfill and 29ha of new land next to the Karpal Singh Drive waterfront.
PDC signed a deal with PLB in 2020 to carry out the project, which was expected to take four to five years, but no work has visibly begun.