Guan Eng tells Kedah MB to own up to previous remarks about ‘erasing Penang’

KUALA LUMPUR, June 8 — Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor must own up to his earlier remarks about “erasing Penang”, DAP chairman Lim Guan Eng said today.

Lim who is Bagan MP said Sanusi should not accuse the media of misreporting after the public backlash.

“If there was a mistake in the news report, why did he wait seven days to make a correction?

“The reporters who wrote the news reports would have done a thorough fact check before they published it.

“Don’t become what we call baling batu sembunyi tangan,” Lim told a press conference in Parliament.

The Malay saying can be likened to the English phrase “passing the buck”.

Lim added that Sanusi could have reported a police complaint for action to be taken against the initial news outlet Free Malaysia Today (FMT) that carried the news if he had asked and it refused to published a correction.

“However, the fact is that Sanusi did not immediately contact FMT for a correction after FMT published the report on May 31.

“By not making any correction for seven days and then now shifting the blame to FMT only after being questioned by the police, Sanusi is behaving in a most irresponsible and untrustworthy manner unfit for the important office of the Kedah menteri besar.

“I am certain the FMT reporter, being a senior journalist, has got all the evidence in writing from Sanusi before putting pen to paper to come out with such an important news report,” Lim said.

He also denied making a police report against Sanusi as claimed.

“I wish to correct his false assertion that I had lodged a police report against him. This is untrue.

“The police reports were made not by me but by other Penang elected representatives and ordinary Penangites angered by Sanusi wanting to amend the Federal Constitution to erase Penang to return Penang back to Kedah,” Lim said.

Yesterday, Malay daily Sinar Harian reported Sanusi denying he was trying to reclaim Penang for Kedah and adding that he only wanted the federal government to allocate a bigger payment for leasing Penang from Kedah.

Sanusi was reported saying that the narrative had been deliberately skewed to give a negative impression of his party and coalition to suggest that Penangites would lose their state.

Police also recorded Sanusi’s statements yesterday after calls from the government, including Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, for action to be taken.

After speaking to the police, Sanusi told a news conference that he had presented documents to the police, including Kedah’s three previous letters to the prime minister to seek for discussion on several matters, including payment for the alleged lease of Penang from RM10,000 a year to RM10 million a year from 2018.

Sanusi claimed that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has yet to respond to his letter seeking for talks to evaluate the current rates for the lease payment to be paid to Kedah, Sinar Harian reported yesterday.

National news agency Bernama had in 2015 previously reported that the Kedah sultanate had leased Penang island to the British in 1791 for 6,000 Spanish Dollars and Seberang Perai in 1800 for 4,000 Spanish Dollars, and that the federal government had continued to pay RM10,000 annually to Kedah after the states of then Malaya gained independence.

After Kedah state executive council member Datuk Mohd Rawi Abdul Hamid said in 2017 that the Kedah state government had informed the federal government of its decision to reclaim Penang, Penang’s Tanjong MP Ng Wei Aik had the same year said Kedah’s bid to claim ownership over Penang violates the Federal Constitution which recognises Penang as a state.

On August 8, 2018, Lim who was then finance minister told the Dewan Rakyat that the Cabinet had agreed for the federal government to make a special contribution of RM10 million per year to the Kedah state government starting from 2018, with this special annual payment being a unilateral undertaking by the federal government and the sum to be reviewed once every 10 years or within a suitable timeframe.

Apart from the special annual payment of RM10 million, Lim had said the special annual payment of RM10,000 to Kedah would be continued.

Lim was responding to a parliamentary question then from Kedah’s Jerlun MP Datuk Seri Mukhriz Mahathir on whether the federal government agrees to review the “land lease value” of Penang which allegedly did not match current property values or whether the federal government would compensate the state of Kedah.

In October 2021, Sanusi was reported demanding that Kedah be paid RM100 million every year for the alleged “lease” of its land to Penang, instead of the RM10 million that the federal government has been paying since 2018.