By Melissa Chi | October 13, 2011 The Malaysian Insider
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 13 — MRT Corporation CEO Datuk Azhar Abdul Hamid pledged today Jalan Sultan properties will not be acquired for the Klang Valley Mass Rapit Transit project, as long as businesses and landowners vacate their premises temporarily during tunnel construction. “We are not touching your property, we are not going to take over your property, I don’t understand why realignment becomes an issue.
“I would acknowledge to you today that the biggest challenge would be in Bukit Bintang area because the area is so tight that we cannot get to the underground tunnel done without demolishing buildings at the top,” he said today.
The newly appointed chief of the MRT project owner said Jalan Sultan traders would be compensated for six months loss of income, of which the value would be determined by an independent third party firm, and to put them up at another location if necessary. He also promised to put construction on hold during the Chinese New Year celebration, and guaranteed that the traders could resume business as usual at the end of the six month period.
Azhar said the Jalan Sultan and Jalan Bukit Bintang traders and shop owners were supposed get back to him on whether they had reached a mutual decision yesterday, but they had decided to have a press conference Instead.
The traders — backed by former MCA president Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat and DAP’s Bukit Bintang MP Fong Kui Lun — threatened to raise their grouses directly with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak if their demands are not met.
The ad hoc committees encompassing traders from both streets have also banded together to form the “Committee of preserving Jalan Sultan and Jalan Bukit Bintang”, a special joint taskforce aimed at pressuring the government into considering a realignment to the MRT’s Sungai Buloh-Kajang line.
MORE TO COME