Our teachers in school used to tell us that those who resort to name-calling during arguments are those who have lost the argument, or have no argument. In response to my criticisms yesterday, the Urban Well-being, Housing and Local Government Minister, Dato’ Abdul Rahman Dahlan tweeted
“As I predicted, @tonypua would protect his ‘demigod’ DAP boss in Penang by spinning federal housing project issue in Penang. I will respond,” the Kota Belud MP said in a series of tweets today.
“@tonypua probably doesn’t know what sarcasm meant when I said I am afraid to see his demigod boss becoz he was fierce and angry! Very funny”.
It appears that the Minister had to stoop to name-calling to distract the fact that he cannot explain why the Federal Government agencies are building “affordable homes” costing up to RM575,000 to RM1.8 million in Seberang Perai and Penang island respectively. These prices clearly breached the “affordable housing” guideline in Penang of RM250,000 and RM400,000 respectively.
The Minister also cannot explain why the Federal Government agencies – JKP Sdn Bhd and Penang Regional Housing Development Authority (PERDA) needs to make excessive profits of RM149 million for these projects. It would appear that Penangites not only have to fund their own housing, they have to further fund the Federal Government. This is despite the fact that Penangites pay the highest income taxes to the Federal Government, after Federal Territories and Selangor.
Perhaps it is also too much to expect the Dato’ Rahman Dahlan to explain why JKP and PERDA should be allowed to build anything else other than low and low-medium cost housing on the 11 out of 15 parcels of land which were compulsorily acquired “for public interest purposes”.
Even his criticism that I didn’t know “what sarcasm meant” doesn’t hold water. I’m pretty certain the meaning of Dato’ Rahman Dahlan’s profound sarcasm is equally lost on fellow Malaysians who were just expecting a straight and responsible answer from the Minister.
When asked by a Malaysiakini reporter 2 days ago if he should perhaps meet Lim at his office in the state administrative complex at Komtar, or invite him for a teh tarik, Rahman Dahlan only replied, “He’s very fierce (bengis), he is angry all the time (selalu marah). I am frightened (takut).”
He should have just agreed to meet the Penang Chief Minister to resolve the issue in the interest of the rakyat, but he chose to dodge with a cowardly less-than-sarcastic answer.
Worse, despite his tweet defending himself as just being sarcarstic, he still hasn’t responded as to the very unsarcastic question as to whether he will meet the Chief Minister.
As the Malay saying goes, “berani kerana benar”. The Minister doesn’t dare to meet the Penang Chief Minister because he has been telling lies to the people. On the other hand, the Penang state government is ready to meet him any time, because the truth is on our side.
Hence, instead of knowingly making unfounded accusations against the Penang state government, the Housing Minister should instead reprimand his federal agencies for attempting to profiteer from ordinary Malaysians.
If Dato’ Abdul Rahman Dahlan is sincere about building affordable homes, he should take a leaf out of the Penang state government’s book. The latter has allocated a record RM500 million to build 22,512 affordable housing units in Penang with no intention of profiting from these projects.