How dare caretaker Chief Minister Koh Tsu Koon give himself an 'A' grade in the ' Penang Progress Report Card for 1999-2004 '?

The fact is Penang's GDP per head has declined sharply from 1.4 times national average in 1995 to 0.88 times national level in 2002.

Statistics compiled by Socio-Economic and Environmental Research Institute (Seri) illustrate Koh's failures in bus registration, airport throughput, port throughput, hotel occupancy, and ratios of teacher/pupil per Chinese primary school.

In his report card, Koh only quoted Seri's praise of Penang's quality of life leaving out many crucial details.

Statistics that the Penang government does not want you to see include:

Large number of private car registrations vs small number of buses and taxi registrations (page 13, 2001).

Aircraft movement through Penang airport that peaked in 1996 and is now way below that (page 14).

Air passengers that peaked in 1997 (page 14).

Penang port's ship call and tonnage that are flat or down since 1998 (page 16).

Hotel occupancy that peaked in 1998 at 60.4% and down to 54% in 2002 despite sharp currency devaluation (page 18).

Chinese primary school number that stayed flat at 90 while student went up from 55,000 to 58.600 and teachers went from only 2,538 to 2,558 (page 20).

Even the supposed achievement came at great prices. BORR (Butterworth Outer Ring Road) was delayed and killed off businesses and create great inconvenience for residences. That is happening to the much-smaller Little India project.

The accident-prone Jelutong Expressway was delayed and now only partially finished. PORR will only be a nightmarish version of Jelutong Expressway if no open bidding is called to find the financially strongest and most capable contractor.

Seri has done a good job gathering statistics on Penang. Recently, however, perhaps owing to such negative statistics in its reports, Seri publications have been taken off line. That second quarter 2003 report was the last we have. Seri statistics may have gone the way of the Air Pollution Index, which has also been taken offline. This is probably to make a bad Penang government less transparent and less assailable.

The Penang government must make the latest statistics report from Seri available to the public.