GEORGE TOWN, Aug 3 — Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng questioned today how he could be both anti-Chinese and anti-Malay as alleged by MCA and Umno, pointing out instead that he was only anti-corruption instead.“Before this, they (Umno) claimed that I was anti-Malay and had sidelined them (the Malays), now they (MCA) said that I am anti-Chinese for not giving contracts to the Chinese.
“What is their actual basis to attack me?” he said at a DAP talk here last night.
In the past two weeks, Penang MCA has repeatedly accused the DAP-led state government of being anti-Chinese for awarding only two contracts in the past three years to Chinese contractors.
In its latest salvo yesterday, the state MCA said the Penang government’s decision to award only 0.2 per cent of the 968 projects tendered since the opposition party took power in 2008 suggested that Lim thought the Chinese community “incompetent”.
Before this latest attack, the Penang administration under Lim has regularly been accused by Umno, MCA’s senior partner in the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, of being racist for allegedly discriminating against the Malay community.
“I am neither anti-Chinese nor Malay, I am only anti-corruption,” said Lim last night.
Yesterday, the Malay Contractors Association of Malaysia’s (PKMM) Penang branch defended the state’s open tender system as fair and warned Penang MCA to stop politicising contracts awarded to Bumiputeras there.
Acting Penang PKMM chief Datuk Izham Merican condemned what he said was Penang MCA’s “ignorance” for failing to understand that open tenders allowed the state government to select the best and most competitively priced contractors, regardless of race.
“By only questioning contracts awarded to Malays, is MCA being racist towards the abilities of Malay contractors whom they regard as less competent than other contractors?” Izham said in a statement yesterday.
“The Penang Malay Contractors Association of Malaysia strongly rejects MCA’s racist sentiment which insults Malay contractors ... MCA should remember that there are good and not-so-good groups in all races, including the Chinese.”
MCA Wanita deputy secretary-general Tan Cheng Liang also claimed the Penang government had awarded a RM1 million project to a 19-year-old part-time college student.
The Bumiputera student was awarded the project to construct a double-storey religious school in Batu Maung, Tan had said in her bid to support MCA’s claims that the DAP government was being unfair to Chinese contractors.
Tan’s claims have been denied by the parents of the student. - TMI
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