Kah Choon sleeping on his job, says Tsu Koon

The Gerakan president hits back at his former colleague over remarks about investments in Penang.

GEORGE TOWN: In a tit-for-tat spat, Gerakan president senator Koh Tsu Koon fired a broadside at his former party colleague Lee Kah Choon, accusing him of “sleeping on his job” over issues related to investments in Penang.

Yesterday, Lee, Invest Penang chairman, said Koh, a former chief minister, was “sleep talking” for suggesting that investment decisions would take time to be made.

An irritated Koh said by resorting to name calling, Lee had exposed his own weaknesses and ignorance of the actual happenings.

“Lee remarks also reflected his current boss, Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng’s ignorance and weaknesses,” said Koh.

Koh said he knew of a multi-national company (MNC) whose investment proposition took some five years to be finalised because it did not only involve transfer of technology.

He said his then state government wooed the MNC to move its whole facility to Penang, which involved shifting of infrastructure, human resources and supply base.

As a result, he said the MNC had to look into the viability and feasibility of all these aspects before deciding to move.

“It took some five years before the MNC made the decision to move in,” Koh told reporters after chairing a state Barisan Nasional meeting here today.

Modern age

Yesterday, Lee, who is also a former health ministry parliamentary secretary, said Koh’s explanation that investment decision took years to make in this modern age was going against the current “Just-In-Time” (JIT) philosophy of the manufacturing world. (JIT is a strategy that reduces in-process inventory resulting in mininum waste of time and resources.)

“By then the technology will be obsolete and the product will not fit into the supply chain for the overall manufacturing process,” said Lee, the former Jelutong MP.

Koh returned fire, saying that the former Gerakan deputy secretary-general “may have been sleeping on his job for not knowing about (investments),” a clear dig at Lee’s current job.

Koh, a minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of unity and performance, also warned Lee to watch his words when he opens his mouth the next time.

On Saturday, Koh criticised Lim for unfairly claiming credit on successes that should be rightly attributed to the previous BN administration.

Koh accused Lim of skillfully manipulating the media to claim credit for the success handed down from his previous administration.

In 2010, Penang’s total capital investments in manufacturing projects came to RM12.24 billion, a near five-fold leap from RM2.17 billion in 2009.

Up till May this year, Penang has been second to Selangor with RM4.49 billion of investments in approved manufacturing projects.

Selangor chalked up RM4.74 billion for the same period.