SEBERANG PERAI, Dec 16 — Railway Assets Corporation (RAC) has been warned to offer compensation or alternative housing to the residents of Kampung Manis it is evicting or face repercussions from the Penang state government.
Penang Deputy Chief Minister II P.Ramasamy said the Penang state government will not allow the mass eviction of residents without suitable compensation.
“This is Penang, they cannot do this without consultation with me as the Perai assemblyman and without offering the residents a place to go, these are poor people, they have no place to go,” he said in a press conference at Kampung Manis today.
About 200 families are living in about 500 houses spread out over the village near the Prai River and the Malayan Sugar Manufacturing plant.
The RAC issued villagers with the notice of eviction yesterday and gave them six months to vacate the land without any offer of compensation or alternative housing.
The letter also alluded that a representative from Ramasamy’s office had visited the site together with RAC and the Land and Mines Department director on August 24.
Today, the Perai assemblyman said his staff was not informed that the visit on August 24 was in preparation of the eviction.
“We were misled into thinking it was a site visit to check on the drainage conditions and take a census of the people living there,” he said.
He said his representative, Asrol Sany Abdul Razak, lodged a police report against RAC yesterday to deny that Ramasamy’s office was involved in the eviction.
“We will be sending a legal notice to RAC for misleading us and alluding that we agree to this eviction,” Ramasamy said.
He warned the RAC of sanctions from the state government if it proceeded with the eviction without offering the residents any alternatives.
He reminded the RAC that it would still need planning permissions from the local authority, which is under the state’s purview, if it planned on developing the land.
“We are not against development, we welcome development but they must do this properly, they have to give each of the villagers a house, replace a house with a house,” he said.
He pointed out that Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) had consulted him when they wanted to develop land in Perai so RAC is welcomed to do so too.
“Why is RAC so arrogant? You can’t come to meet with me and discuss a resolution for this first? This is going through the backdoor to do things,” he said.
According to the residents, many of them have lived there for up to four generations.
A former factory worker, N.Anjalai, has been living in the village for over 70 years.
The 86-year-old used to work at the Malayan Sugar Manufacturing Co Sdn Bhd next to the village.
“When I first started living here, there were only a few houses here and I raised my children here,” she said.
She said her children are married and had moved elsewhere so she is living there alone.
“They want me to move out, where do I go? I have nowhere else and I don’t have any money,” she said.
Another villager, M. Letchumanie, 25, said her husband’s family has lived in the village for three generations.
She claimed that when the RAC handed over the eviction notice yesterday, they did not inform them that it was an eviction notice.
“They told us it was a letter on the census of the village, they did not even show us the notice unless we sign a letter receiving it,” she said.
She said it was only after they handed over the notice that she realised that it was an eviction notice.
Sutami Kaslan, 50, has been living in the village for over 22 years with her two children.
The widow said she earned a meagre income as a roadside hawker and her children are still studying.
“If they evict us without offering us a house, where will we go? We are not rich, we have nowhere else to go,” she said.
