Last Saturday as I was driving with my wife towards Seremban town, we saw many people gathering at a Chinese primary school and a police patrol car was also parking at the road side. I told my wife there must be something unusual and it looked as though the parents were gathering there for a demonstration against something as a few reporters were also at the scene, busy taking photos.
The next morning we read in the newspaper that it was actually due to a dispute between a developer and the school authority as the school’s parking was sitting on the land belongs to the developer and the developer intended to demolish the parking for commercial purposes.
That land used to be a government reserved land and was used by the school as parking as long as I can remember since I moved to Seremban. Just a narrow strip along the road before the wet market, about 30,000 sq ft that the developer bought for RM 300,000.00 many years ago. It was never an issue in the past as the previous owners never raised any issue and allowing the school to use the narrow strip of land for parking. But the present land owner seemed keener on his own gains rather than the public interest.
The developer accused the school authority for indecisiveness as the school had turned down a few offers by him. But the school authority was blaming that the developer was too greedy as he wanted to sell that piece of land for RM 2.8 million for what he had bought for RM 300 thousand. We don’t know who is right and who is wrong but if the developer resorted to forcefully demolish the parking, even though he has the legal right to do so, then this developer, who is also a China man must have let his own greed to blow up his top. As reported by The China Press, this developer even engaged security personnel armed with firearms to guard that so bloody precious piece of land and creating unnecessary tensions.
The developer could have known of the status or the land and its circumstances before he bought it and he seemed so determined to convert a land used for parking for a Chinese primary school for his own wealth. For those who were educated in Chinese primary school will know how hard to keep it alive as there are many obstacles such as lack of funding and so on and as such, the Chinese primary schools nationwide very often conduct their own fund raising donations for expansion work or other purposes. I guess one of the reasons why the Chinese primary school is still standing nowadays is because of the generosity of the Chinese community in donating their hard earned money to support its survival.
But sadly, there are people so money-minded that they’re putting their own wealth ahead of public interest. As Chinese always put it, “never give up on education no matter how poor one is”, some businessmen simply don’t get it, that’s just too bad.
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