Press Statement by Cheong Yin Fan in Georgetown on Wednesday, 18^th November 2009:

BN and Gerakan deliberately distorts the stand taken by Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng in seeking to declassify decisions of EXCO and Land Committee minutes

I am directed to refer to erroneous statements made by BN and Gerakan that deliberately distorts the stand taken by Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng in seeking to declassify decisions of EXCO and Land Committee minutes this Friday relating to the land conversion of Penang Heritage Hotel Sdn Bhd(PHH) land to freehold status. Instead of welcoming the efforts to declassify the decisions made, Gerakan had chosen to criticise this effort by asking why minutes relating to Kampung Buah Pala were not revealed and declassified.

I wish to reiterate Penang Chief Minister Lim’s assertions that in declassifying minutes, only decisions made will be revealed and not the points raised by EXCO members during meetings. To expose all that was said would be unfair to some EXCO members, especially to ex-officio EXCO members who were carrying out their duty as public officers. In focusing only on decisions, there were indeed several decisions made by this PR state government on PHH.

In contrast, there were no decisions made by the present PR state government on Kampung Buah Pala as all decisions that could be made were already made by the previous BN government. Penang Chief Minister Lim did not sign any document on Kampung Buah Pala as anything that needed to be signed was already signed away by the previous BN administration.

The sale of Kampung Buah Pala land, issuance of development order and building approvals by MPPP were all given by the previous state government. That is why Lim had said that revealing the minutes of decisions on Kampung Buah Pala by PR would be just like a blank page as there was nothing to be revealed in the PR state EXCO minutes.

The PR state government adheres to its CAT principles of competency, accountability and transparency. It is this CAT principles that allowed the PR state government to improve on BN‘s miserable offer of a RM 75,000 flat to the residents with PR’s offer of a RM 600,000 double-storey terrace house – the highest offer in Malaysian history.

* Cheong Yin Fan, Press Secretary To The Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng