What is wrong with the PTMP and PSI?

LETTER | I believe some quarters have been misinformed regarding the Penang Transport Master Plan (PTMP) and Penang South Islands (PSI) project.

They are misinformed by a group called Penang Forum comprising non-governmental organisation (NGO) members and opposition political leaders from parties such as PAS.

Not all NGOs are against the ruling government but all opposition leaders are by virtue of their political ambition. However, when an NGO has again and again displayed anti-government diatribe, it becomes evident that there is something more beneath the surface.

While the Penang government, led by Pakatan Harapan coalition, is leading the state to become a world-class competitive and high-income city, these NGOs seem to be trying their best to turn Penang into Kelantan.

The PTMP and PSI  project have become these NGOs’ main complaints against the Penang government so much so that they organised a forum with a string of speakers attacking these initiatives. But what exactly is wrong with the PTMP and PSI project?

The NGOs allege that these projects lack expertise but what they really want is to push for their own view to be regarded as “expertise”.

I once sat in a focus-group session with three transport experts presenting three different proposals to address Penang’s traffic woes. One argued for an on-ground tram system, one for bus rapid transit (BRT) and another one for Light Rail Transit (LRT). It is, therefore, wrong for these NGOs to talk as if there is only one expert view on the matter.

Furthermore, the PTMP’s LRT and PSI have been vouched for respectively by Universiti Sains Malaysia’s deputy vice-chancellor and professor of transportation engineering Ahmad Farhan Mohd Sadullah together with eminent economists such as the chairperson of the Khazanah Research Institute, Nungsari A Radhi.

Ahmad has remarked that the LRT “is imperative and urgently needed for Penang,” while Nungsari has stated that the PSI “is a perfectly rational economic project for a place like Penang.”

These are prominent and experienced experts whom these NGOs and certain quarters have ignored. The NGOs have also alleged that the PTMP and PSI project are projects that were adopted by the state government to benefit developers. This is wrong.

Those projects went through an open tender in the form of request-for-proposals, a method used by the World Bank and the UN. The present PTMP was the result of an evaluation of six different proposals by international audit firm KPMG and hundreds of stakeholder engagement sessions.

In fact, the increase of the estimated cost of the PTMP from RM27 billion to RM46 billion came from those stakeholder engagement sessions that requested transport infrastructures such as an LRT, monorail and a longer BRT to be built on the mainland.

By wanting to smear these projects, these NGOs highlight only the cost increase but hide the rationale behind the increment. That’s why the articles written by some quarters make no mention of this – they've been misinformed by the NGOs.

The open tender method did not end with the PTMP. The PSI project is currently going through a master design competition involving various globally renowned planners and architects working hand-in-hand with local firms to provide the best proposal that will benefit Penang in the long-run.

So what exactly is wrong with the PTMP and PSI project? They are definitely not perfect plans for there will be impacts and mitigation measures will need to be in place to address these.

Nevertheless, they are gamechanger infrastructures that will chart Penang’s future. And Penang Forum and the opposition politicians will continue to collaborate to do their best to prevent that from happening.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.