SEPANG: The government will consider calls made by the people for the closure of Australian rare earths company Lynas Corp despite having issued an extension permit on its operations yesterday, said Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
"There has been an investigation (on Lynas) and it has been declared that there is no danger (to its operations).
"But of course, the people still feel that we should get rid of Lynas from there, okay we will look into it," he said today when asked to comment on the renewal of Lynas's operations permit for another six months.
Dr Mahathir was met during a press conference after his official visit to AirAsia's headquarters, RedQ here today.
Yesterday, the government had put forward three conditions for the licence renewal.
They were transferring its cracking and leaching process which is currently conducted at its plant in Gebeng, Kuantan, out of the country; identifying a specific site to construct a permanent deposit facility (PDF) and to obtain written permission from the state government for the use of that site and ending all research and development activities related to the use of the radioactive water leach purification (WLP) residue as Condisoil in the field of agriculture.
Dr Mahathir hoped Lynas would oblige to the government requirements.
Commenting on the anti-Lynas rally this Sunday, which among others would see demonstrators torching the Pakatan Harapan manifesto, he said such action would not resolve anything.
"Yes, they can burn the manifesto, but they have to deal with this thing in a rational way, they can't just go around burning manifesto and expect everything to be resolved. It will just make people angry," he said.
"Of course, I must admit, when we drew up the manifesto, many things were not known to us. Now we are finding different information and we have to respond to those information," he added.
Protesters claimed that Pakatan Harapan would have violated Promise 39, where it pledges to govern the country based on the principles of sustainability, if it allowed Lynas Corp to continue operating in the country.
