Anti-Kidex rep barred from technical meeting despite invitation

Say No To Kidex committee member Mak Khuin Weng says he turned up at a technical meeting today only to find he had been barred from attending it. – The Malaysian Insider file pic, October 17, 2014.

Despite an invitation to attend a technical meeting on the RM2.4 billion Kidex highway today, Say No To Kidex (SNTK) lobbyist Mak Khuin Weng found himself shut out.

Upon arriving at the meeting venue, SNTK committee member Mak told The Malaysian Insider that Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) officers said it was a closed-door meeting, restricted to the concessionaire Kidex (Kinrara-Damansara Expressway) Sdn Bhd  and state government officials.

"The meeting is between Kidex Sdn Bhd, Petaling Jaya MPs, state assemblymen and MBPJ," Mak said.

This was despite an invitation extended by the city council to the anti-Kidex lobby group.

SNTK co-chairman Tan Yew Leong had received a call from an MBPJ officer yesterday to send a representative to the meeting, less than 24 hours before the event.

"There was no written invitation or information about the role or function of our representative," Mak said.

The proposed 14.9km highway is mired in controversy chiefly because of the concession is owned by Umno lawyer Datuk Hafarizam Harun and the family of former chief justice Tun Zaki Azmi.

Petaling Jaya residents who will be affected by the project also say the concessionaire has failed to consult them, and have cited technical, social, economic, environmental and aesthetic problems with the highway.

The highway will begin near Bandar Kinrara in Puchong and end near the Tropicana Mall in Petaling Jaya, snaking through Taman Medan Baru, Taman Datuk Harun, the Jalan Templer area, past the Tun Hussein Onn Eye Hospital and the Hilton Hotel Petaling Jaya, Amcorp Mall and Section 14.

The technical meeting today is expected to touch on a possible extension for Kidex beyond its November 15 deadline to fulfil basic conditions before construction can begin.

The conditions include obtaining feedback from residents affected by the project.

Mak said the residents’ associations, which have opposed the project, represented some 30,000 people and lamented that the local authorities lacked transparency and failed to give clear information to the public.

MORE TO COME

- TMI