Call on Perumahan Farlim, the Developers of Thean Teik Estate, not to exhibit an ugly and inhuman face with its threat to withdraw offer of free flats and compensation to the residents

Press Statement by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Kota Melaka, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Thursday, Nov. 11, 1982:

Call on Perumahan Farlim, the Developers of Thean Teik Estate, not to exhibit an ugly and inhuman face with its threat to withdraw offer of free flats and compensation to the residents

The Chairman of Perumahan Farlim, the Developer of Thean Teik Estate in Penang, namely Tunku Farid bin Tunku Hussain, said in a statement yesterday that his company might withdraw the offer of free flats and compensation to the residents.

The present offer of Perumahan Farlim was only with regard to the exchange of flat for the demolition of their houses; but went no way to deal with the loss of livelihood, whether vegetable farming or pig and poultry rearing, which would be destroyed as well.

What Perumahan Farlim must come out with is to present an offer which would also ensure that the 10,000 people in Thean Teik Estate would not become jobless. Instead of working in this direction, the Thean Teik Estate Developer has now come out with the shocking statement that it would withdraw what it had at present offered, which is already inadequate to meet the needs of the Thean Teik residents.

Perumahan Farlim is showing an ‘ugly and inhuman’ face in this matter, and I call on Perumahan Farlim to realise that it has a social responsibility to the 10,000 people in Thean Teik Estate who would be displaced and dispossessed by its development.

Is Perumahan Farlim not satisfied with having caused the death of one Thean Teik resident, Madam Tan Siew Lee, and the injury of four persons injured? Is Perumahan Farlim so stubborn and ‘heartless’ that it is prepared to push through with its schedule of work, even if it means more deaths and more persons injured?

What is surprising is that Farlim Perumahan’s latest show of its ‘ugly and inhuman’ face came after Dr. Lim Chong Eu’s ‘intervention’.

This must make people wonder whether the so-called registration of Thean Teik Estate people conducted by the District Office personnel at the instruction of the Chief Minister, Dr. Lim Chong Eu, is meant to help the Thean Teik Estate residents, or to help the developer, Perumahan Farlim?

If Dr. Lim Chong Eu wants to ‘intervene’, in the Thean Teik Estate matter, then he must deal with the matter on an urgent basis, and not allow Perumahan Farlim to continue to send workers to Thean Teik Estate to encroach on the livelihood and security of tenure of the Thean Teik people. Had Dr. Lim Chong Eu met the Perumahan Farlim people? Was the shocking announcement by Perumahan Farlim, showing its has no sincerity in wanting to reach an amicable settlement with the residents, the result of the Dr. Lim Chong Eu’s meeting with Perumahan Farlim?

I call on Dr. Lim Chong Eu to declare his stand on the announcement by Perumahan Farlim yesterday, and to explain how he is going about it to intervene and resolve the Thean Teik Estate dispute, before more deaths and injuries occur.