CHERAS: Former MCA president Ong Tee Keat today accused his successor Dr Chua Soi Lek of orchestrating the recent protest at his service centre, and told the latter to quit politics.
Firing a salvo at Chua, Tee Keat said the protesters’ demand for him (Tee Keat) to retire and give up his Pandan parliamentary seat was the handiwork of Chua.
“Various kinds of dramas will pop up whenever elections are around the corner, this is part and parcel of politics.
“But I think the kind of advice (retire call) should be rightfully directed to the protesters’ boss, Chua Soi Lek,” he told reporters.
Ong had earlier mocked the residents in his Twitter, saying that “they deserved a special award from Chua Soi Lek”.
On March 10, the group demanded Ong to retire since he had served for five terms and failed to bring about “significant changes to the constituency”.
Ong and Chua renewed their political grudge after Chua announced a new MCA candidate for the Pandan constituency, citing Ong’s failure to garner Pandan MCA’s support as the reason.
Most of division members later clarified that they had never met to discuss issues pertaining to candidate selections, and the decision to nominate Gary Lim was made between Chua and the division chief.
Ong repeatedly told the media that he would be defending his seat, even if he was fielded as a direct BN candidate.
Problem with land titles
On a separate matter, Ong said he was surprised by Selangor state exco for housing Iskandar Samad’s recent statement that the developer of Taman Lembah Maju had failed to pay land premium amounting to RM4 million.
This saw 3,107 households in the area denied land titles despite development completed in mid 1990s.
Iskandar had reportedly said that the developer, Ekabina Sdn Bhd, had failed to submit any application for premium calculation and pay the premium until 2009, thus the land had technically become state land on Dec 1, 2009.
Commenting on Iskandar’s response, Ong said residents who pursued issuance of titles with various state authorities since 2009 had never been informed about the outstanding land premiums.
“How come all of a sudden there is an outstanding premium? From where did it come from? How are you going to resolve this?” he asked.
Ong said the state should not resort to finger-pointing and instead focus on providing solutions.
He said the delay in issuing titles would hinder sales and purchase of properties in the area and the establishment of a Chinese school there.
“A plot of land alienated for the school could be surrendered to the federal government due to the problem, despite the Education Ministry having approved the school and the Finance Ministry having allocated RM300 million to the school,” he added.
The Taman Lembah Maju fiasco involves 3,107 titles, 2,786 of them being strata titles for high-rise properties, 178 commercial titles for shop houses, while the rest are individual titles for terrace houses.
