While Penang Chief Miniser Lim Guan Eng has denied maligning Johor in an interview on an Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio station, TV3 last night disclosed that the DAP secretary-general did indeed ‘bad mouth’ Johor - in Singapore.

NONE The purported audio recording - aired by TV3's Buletin Utama - reveals that he had disparaged Johor over its crime rate during a recent meeting with foreign correspondents in the republic .

The TV station, which is linked to Umno, claimed that Lim's remarks were made at a luncheon talk with the Foreign Correspondents’ Association in Singapore on Aug 12.

Lim had, during the talk, flaunted Penang’s relative safety when he commented that Singaporeans are "likely to be kidnapped" when they go to Johor.

Buletin Utama’s full transcript of the purported audio recording reads:

"(Penang) is visibly cleaner, greener and also safer. We talk of safety in term of reducing crime index. Penang was number one last year in term of cutting crime. We cut crimes by 37 percent last year and for the first six months of the year, we cut crime by another 25 percent.

"So you don't have to worry about your safety when you come to Penang. In Johor, if you are a Singaporean, you are likely to get kidnapped. You ask any Singaporeans, they would know, but you don't have that problem when you come to Penang."

Umno leaders blast Lim

Buletin Utama also interviewed Deputy International Trade and Industry Minister Mukhriz Mahathir ( left ), who urged Lim to stop making baseless and irresponsible comments about other states because this would tarnish Malaysia's image as a whole.

NONE Lim had vehemently denied that he had made any derogatory remarks against other states when he recently visited Australia, as alleged by Bernama .

Lim has demanded an unconditional apology from the national news agency for its report quoting him as saying, in the ABC interview,that Johor is not a safe state as kidnappings are common there, unlike in Penang.

The report also quoted Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin's criticism of Lim for undermining Johor and painting the state as an unsuitable investment destination.

Lim to deal with Bernama first

Lim's office later produced the official transcript of the ABC interview to disprove Muhyiddin's claim.

According to the transcript, Lim had neither mentioned Johor, nor made any reference to the situation in other states.

Later this afternoon, Lim’s press secretary Wong Kim Fei issued a statement stating that the chief minister would be seeking an apology from Bernama first before commenting on the TV3 report.

“The Penang Chief Minister had instructed me to inform the BN-controlled media that he will not dance to the tune of jumping like frogs from one location or one country to another but deal with the BN media one at a time.

“It is clear that this is a planned and concerted attempt by the BN-controlled media to distract the Penang chief minister from his official duties with a plethora of misrepresentations, distortions and outright lies,” he said.

Lim is currently on an official visit to Indonesia.