The third Penang bridge project is another ridiculous impromptu suggestion by Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng ‘to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs’, claims Penang MCA liaison committee secretary Dr Tan Chuan Hong.

He said the bridge proposed to be built across Gurney Drive and Bagan Ajam in George Town might affect the Penang Port which served as the state’s important economic resources.

“The development of Penang Port attracts foreign investment and if it is cast aside, Penang will lose its competitiveness as the ‘golden triangle’ of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, and Lim wants to kill this (golden) goose of Penang?” he asked in a statement in George Town today.

Pointing out that the project was just another random promise by the chief minister, Tan said even if the undersea tunnel plan was cancelled, the DAP-led state government had given a large sum of the people’s money to the successful bidder.

“Why only now Lim Guan Eng wants to abolish the undersea tunnel plan?” he asked.

Lim is seeking the federal government’s approval to build Penang’s third bridge, and it was reported that if approval was given, the state government would drop the undersea tunnel project.

Yesterday, Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Minister Abdul Rahman Dahlan said Lim’s request to approve Penang’s third bridge via a letter to the works minister without any supporting document was appalling.

He was reported saying that no government in the world would have approved such a request based on a letter without proper documentation, in-depth studies and deliberation.

- Bernama