SIBU: State DAP chairman Richard Wong Ho Leng yesterday issued a challenge to SUPP leaders to a public debate on the land issue.

“Choose the date and venue at your pleasure,” he said at a press conference here yesterday.

Wong also issued a separate challenge to SUPP deputy secretary general I and Second Finance Minister Dato Sri Wong Soon Koh to pass a motion on the land issue and another motion to review the new land policy as announced by Second Minister of Planning and Resource Management Dato Sri Awang Tengah Ali Hassan on May 26 last year in the coming Dewan Undangan Negeri sitting.

He said the people could judge for themselves how much SUPP had helped them in solving the problem of land premium issues in the past few years.

But Soon Koh rejected the challenge to debate and bring the land issue to the State Legislative Assembly, saying the opposition party was making political capital of the issue.

“This debate is only a political gimmick of the DAP and I am not going to get involved in it,” he told The Borneo Post when contacted.

Soon Koh said he only wanted to help the people solve the land issue problem, unlike the DAP which was bent on politicising the issue to gain political mileage.

On Soon Koh’s criticism of the DAP chairman for inviting a politician from Peninsular Malaysia, Perak exco Ngeh Koo Ham, to be a speaker for the forum on land issue on Oct 5, Ho Leng said the forum was organised in his personal capacity as a wakil rakyat and it was not for the SUPP deputy secretary general to tell him how to handle the forum or who to invite as the speakers.

“If he wants to know what Ngeh is going to say, he can present himself at the forum. I welcome him to the forum.”

Ho Leng said Ngeh would not touch on Sarawak land policies but on Perak land policies.

“If the Perak government can implement land policies beneficial to the people, Sarawak can also do better,” he argued.