Advertisement

Bersatu assemblyman accuses Penang govt of misleading public over its 90pc pledges fulfilled claims

Malay Mail
Malay Mail

GEORGE TOWN, May 30 — A Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia assemblyman has accused the Penang government of misleading the public when it claimed to have fulfilled 90 per cent of the pledges Pakatan Harapan (PH) made in its election manifesto in 2018.

Dr Afif Bahardin (Bersatu-Seberang Jaya) told the state legislative assembly that the state government did not present the actual facts of its accomplishments when making that announcement on May 9.

“I don’t agree that the state government has achieved 90 per cent of the pledges in its manifesto when less than 60 per cent were achieved,” he said when debating a motion of thanks to the Penang governor’s opening speech.

He said he had a hand in formulating the manifesto back in 2018 and it was a good manifesto, but the state had failed to fulfil many of the pledges made in the manifesto.

He said there were some items in the manifesto that were fulfilled but these should not be equated to a higher percentage of fulfilling the pledges made.

“They can’t equate the planting of 100,000 trees to that of the traffic congestion issue in the state,” he said.

Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow (DAP–Padang Kota) then interjected that the state government did not assign specific values to each project in the manifesto.

“If we want to assign a value, then if we look at the RM76 billion in foreign direct investments we received last year, this is the highest value we can achieve, it can be 100 per cent,” he said.

He said the percentage of achievement was based on the projects in the manifesto that were either completed or had started.

“We must remember that some projects take five to 10 years to achieve, so we can’t achieve these within this term; for example, the Penang South Islands project, we have to wait 20 years for it to be completed,” he explained.

Later, outside the august house, Dr Afif told reporters that the state had spent hundreds of thousands yet had not fulfilled some of the promises that even dated back to 2013.

“There were projects that they had failed to implement yet they claim to have completed the project, such as the undersea tunnel and three highway project, and the traffic congestion issue and lack of public transportation in the state,” he said.

“The Light Rail Transit project and the undersea tunnel project were promised back in 2013. It’s been 10 years, and yet these have not been implemented yet,” he added.

On May 9, Chow announced that the state had fulfilled 52 out of 68 pledges made in its 14th general election manifesto.

He said another 14 pledges are in progress, while only two will not be implemented as they overlapped with projects by the federal government.

Dr Afif also mentioned that agricultural and livestock production in Penang has been dropping since 2020.

He said the PH state government tends to blame the federal government for food security issues, yet the state’s production has been dropping over the years.

“For example, poultry production in the state has dropped from 95,742 metric tonnes to 76,553 metric tonnes,” he said.