Local government development minister Nga Kor Ming tried, on July 18, to explain the mystery behind the vanishing Taiping market but only managed to further fuel suspicion.
“It took some time to design the market. We cannot simply tear it down and rebuild,” he had said of the two buildings making up the market, one built in 1884 and the other a year later.Taiping residents I spoke to are wondering if the authorities are hiding something from them. Some are asking if the two buildings had to be dismantled due to incompetency or poor supervision on the part of the Taiping municipal council or others.
During my visits to Taiping last year and early this year too, I saw restoration work in progress with the superstructure for both largely wooden buildings intact. In fact, a large part of the restoration work on one of the buildings appeared to have been nearing completion. “As far as I know, the authorities were supposed to restore the two buildings without tearing them down. The iconic buildings are more than 100 years old.
“But then this happened. If rules were broken, whoever is responsible should be held accountable. Action must be taken if it was due to someone’s fault or negligence,” Yeap said. She told me: “When I was in my late teens, my brother-in-law Mustafa Kamal , who was a municipal council engineer, mentioned that the council intended to tear down the market and convert it to a parking lot and there was nothing he could do about it.”
“The authorities keep saying they want to preserve or conserve our heritage, our old buildings but then they go and do something like this. So, what is the heritage preservation you are talking about?