MCA asks if DAP sees Chinese as ‘incompetent’

Tan (right) attacked Lim and his political secretary for issuing conflicting statements on the state’s tender process. — file pic

GEORGE TOWN, Aug 1 — MCA continued today to fire anti-Chinese accusations at DAP, this time asking if the Penang government’s decision to award only 0.2 per cent of state projects to Chinese contractors meant they viewed the community as “incompetent”.

“I want to ask (Chief Minister) Lim Guan Eng why, despite the many Chinese in Penang, only a mere 0.2 per cent of the total number of projects were awarded to non-Bumiputera contractors?

“Does the chief minister mean to say that Penang Chinese ‘tak boleh’? How can the Penang Chinese swallow this — that they are incompetent?” Penang Wanita MCA chairman Tan Cheng Liang charged in a strongly-worded statement today.

Tan also questioned DAP’s “so-called multi-racial approach”, claiming that the Penang government under Lim’s leadership appeared to view the Chinese as having lost their competitive edge.

She was referring to a statement purportedly made by Lim in the Chinese media that, since 2008, the Penang government has awarded contracts for 968 projects worth RM125 million, of which 99 per cent were awarded to Bumiputera contractors.

Tan said of the total, only two contracts were awarded to non-Bumiputera contractors — a maintenance project for the Penang Hill cable car (2008) worth RM700,004 and the other, awarded in 2009, was worth RM15,000.

The revelation had irked Tan, who just last week had lodged a similar complaint against Lim over the award of Drainage and Irrigation Department (DID) contracts to non-Bumiputera contractors.

Tan also pointed out today discrepancies in statements made by Lim and his political secretary, Ng Wei Aik, over the tender process in the contract awards.

She said Lim and Ng’s statements gainsaid each other’s, with the former saying that the government practises an open tender system for such awards, while the latter had claimed that all contracts worth RM200,000 and below are directly awarded to Bumiputera contractors.

“Normally, DAP would have their statements co-ordinated. But this round their ‘scripts’ contradict each other.

“As both their statements contradict each other, I wonder who among them is speaking the truth?” she asked.

Up until this latest attack, the Penang administration under Lim’s rule has regularly been accused by Umno, MCA’s senior partner in the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) pact, of being racist by allegedly discriminating against the Malay community.