Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng slammed those who asked the DAP-led state government to learn economics from BN, pointing out that it had managed to turn around Penang’s economy in eight years.

“Instead of praising us for turning around Penang’s economy, we are asked to learn from BN who have destroyed our reputational risk globally with the RM53 billion 1MDB and RM4.2 billion donation scandals.

“For those who lies as easily as we breathe, are clearly unfit to lead the country,” Lim said in a statement today.

He was responding to Gerakan’s secretary-general Liang Teck Meng, who had previously said Lim should learn economics from the minister in charge of the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) Abdul Rahman Dahlan.

Liang had said this is because the CM’s performance in managing the state’s economy was “woeful”.

Lim described these claims as “lies” and that it was an attempt to distort their success in turning around Penang’s economy.

He pointed out that the annual Auditor-General’s Reports proved that in the past eight years since the Pakatan government took over, Penang had recorded annual budget surpluses with accumulated surpluses of RM574 million.

This is more than the accumulated surpluses under BN over the last 50 years since 1957, with a total of RM373 million, he said.

“We have done better in eight years than BN has done in 50 years,” he said.

Not only that, he said, Penang’s asset reserves have nearly doubled in the past eight years, and the state’s debts have been reduced by 90 percent over the same period.

At RM69 million, it is the lowest debt in the country, he said, comparing it to Pahang which owes the most at RM2.9 billion.

“Compare this economic performance of Penang with the federal government that has recorded annual budget deficits for the 18th consecutive year since 1998, with federal government debts increasing by three times since 2007 to RM800 billion.

“Tell me then, which government’s economic performance is woeful?” he asked.

BN has also failed to mention that they were the culprit for Penang recording the lowest growth rate for per capita GDP in the first place, he said.

For the year 2006 to 2007, he said Penang was the bottom state, recording the lowest growth rate for per capita GDP in the country at only 5.9 percent.

“When the Pakatan government took over in 2008, we had a huge task to turn around the economy that recorded the lowest growth rate for per capita GDP,” he said.

This was a task that the Pakatan government succeeded in, he said, citing figures released from the National Statistics Department.

Penang has consistently been in the top three in the country for highest growth rate per capita GDP since 2012, he said.

“This is what the Pakatan government is capable of doing, turning deficits to surpluses, bottom states to national champions, high debts to low debts.

“The secret to Penang Pakatan’s success is our integrity and clean governance,” he said.