Chow defends InvestPenang, cites competition with other states

 Chief minister says the Penang government cannot expect Mida to ensure the state continues to draw foreign investments.

Chief minister Chow Kon Yeow said InvestPenang’s role did not overlap with Mida as the former helps coordinate with state and local authorities to ensure investors have the support they need. (Bernama pic)

GEORGE TOWN:

Chief minister Chow Kon Yeow has defended InvestPenang, saying the state still needs its own investment promotion agency because every state competes to attract investors.

Chow said InvestPenang’s role does not overlap with the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (Mida) as the former helps coordinate with state and local authorities to ensure investors have the support needed to implement their projects.

Once investors decide to come to Malaysia, individual states still have to compete with each other to secure the projects, he added.

“Do you think Mida will take care of Penang?” he asked during his winding-up speech at the state assembly today.

“Each state has its own body such as InvestPenang, InvestKL, Invest Kedah, Invest Pahang and InvestPerak. Each of them fight for the same opportunities.”

The chief minister pointed out that Penang recorded RM287.5 billion in foreign and domestic investments since 2010, creating more than 249,000 jobs.

Approved manufacturing investments from 2018 to 2025 were four times higher than in the previous period, he added.

He was responding to criticism of InvestPenang, including questions raised in the Auditor-General’s (A-G) report and Ong Ah Teong’s (PH-Batu Lancang) suggestion that the agency be dissolved.

The A-G’s report had flagged weaknesses in InvestPenang’s monitoring and internal controls, as well as salary increments and bonus payments to the CEO being made without its board’s approval.

Chow said the state government took the A-G’s findings seriously and have carried out improvements, including establishing a board charter, standardised reporting for overseas investment missions, and better internal procedures.

He added that InvestPenang’s RM18.5 million allocation was for four years, while its expenditure of RM500,000 on 16 overseas missions was among issues being addressed by the state government after the A-G’s report flagged incomplete mission reports.

“(For these trips) we travel light, stay as short as possible, finish the work, and then return,” he maintained.

On the bonus issue, Chow said that InvestPenang’s staff salaries and employment terms, including those of its CEO, were approved by the executive committee board under the system in place at the time.

Ong had said cited the A-G’s finding that the CEO’s salary increase and bonus had been approved by the chairman without discussion or formal approval by the board. - FMT