On 9 March 2013, PTMN organized a talk – Public Consultation: “Warisan Merdeka, Menara 118-Storey Project & Surrounding Community.
Below is the transcript of the speech by Mak Khuin Weng, former MBPJ councillor and journalist:
In 1932, the British Government then, actually did two reservations of the area.
This is the area where the National Stadium is, it is to be reserved for a public purpose – a peoples’ park to be maintained by the chairman of Sanitary Board Kuala Lumpur.
So you have under our laws, the area that has already been reserved for a public purpose. When the land is reserved for a public purpose, the land can only be used for that purpose. So what the British Government did back then, when they reserved it for a park, and they reserved the area for a school, those areas can only be used for that particular purpose and for no other purpose.
According to our laws, here again the National Code says, state land means all land in the state other than alienated land, which is your private land. Reserved land, here it says, reserved land is not state land. It means it doesn’t belong to the government.
What does reserved land actually mean? It actually means that land that has been reserved for a public purpose and is maintained by people –taxpayers’ money. In our case here for Kuala Lumpur, a public park is to be maintained by DBKL and your taxpayers’ money goes towards the maintenance of that public park.
Here you have the land sold off to a private developer. How did this happen? That is a very important question to ask. According to our laws, our government could not have sold this land because it was technically the people’s land – land that was set aside for the people for a public purpose. It could not have sold it, but it was sold.
All of you have been having trouble trying to get DBKL to give you a public hearing, public consultation and they are refusing you.
I have here what you call ‘Total Planning and Development Guidelines’. This is published by the Department of Town and Country Planning, Peninsula Malaysia which is under the Ministry of Housing & Local Government. I’m here to tell you that our government actually has rules and laws that require them to give public consultation.
Reclaim Merdeka Park 