More questions continue to be posed to outgoing Penang Chief Minister Dr Koh Tsu Koon over the controversial Motorola deal and an impending toll hike at the Penang bridge.

In a joint press conference today, opposition DAP and PKR questioned Koh on his confession yesterday that he had wrote a letter asking the federal government to strike the RM1 billion deal with the American telecommunications giant.

The chief minister said he had done so in order to protect the interest of Penangites and Malaysians, who risked losing up to 10,000 jobs should Motorola - which has a manufacturing facility in Penang’s Bayan Lepas Industrial Zone - pull out from the country.

penang pkr dap joint pc 050308 press conference "Tell us how many of the 10,000 jobs preserved are actually for Malaysians? Can he tell us whether the jobs in the Motorola production line had not been given to immigrants?" asked DAP’s Jelutong parliamentary seat candidate Jeff Ooi.

Ooi insisted that the deal reeked of corruption.

Going after the whistleblower

By inking the deal, Ooi claimed that the Gerakan-led state government was using taxpayers’ money to secure a victory in the elections.

"You are buying votes by creating beautiful pictures but you are (using) taxpayers’ money to make a company stay," argued the popular blogger-turned-politician.

Based on industry sources, he claimed that the deal would not only involve the RM1 billion as stated in Koh’s letter to Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi but the actual cost might balloon to RM6 billion.

koh tsu koon motorola pc 040308 explain Yesterday, Koh said he wrote to Abdullah on Dec 3 last year asking the government to offer a RM1 billion project to Motorola involving the upgrading of the police force's radio network.

This would be done in exchange for the multinational staying put in Penang and pumping in an additional investment of RM350 million over the next five years.

He denied that the deal was politically motivated in view of the March 8 general election as the opposition had been harping on the state’s waning economy, partly due to the relocation of multinationals to other countries.

Koh - who was surprised with the information pertaining to the confidential letter being leaked - has also ordered for a probe into this.

However, PKR’s Bayan Baru parliamentary seat candidate and the party’s Penang chief Zahrain Mohamed Hashim criticised the move.

"Whenever the true story comes out (highlighting) their weaknesses, they would direct the police and the authorities to investigate who is the whistleblower," he said.

Impending toll hike

At the same press conference, PKR’s Pantai Jerejak state seat candidate Sim Tze Tzin released a negotiation letter confirming the pending increment by almost 70 percent for toll rates for the Penang bridge.

penang pkr dap joint pc 050308 sim tze tzin The letter, dated August last year, was between the bridge concessionaire United Engineers (Malaysia) Berhad (UEM) and a top official at the Economic Planning Unit in the Prime Minister’s Department.

The letter said that the toll increment was to be on par with the rate fixed for the new second bridge. The toll rate for the new bridge, which is under construction, is fixed at RM9.40.

At present, there are two different rates for cars plying the Penang bridge. Prepaid travel card Touch and Go users enjoy a discounted rate of RM5.60 while regular users pay RM7.00. Toll is collected one-way.

The letter also pointed to the abolishment of the existing Touch and Go discounts.

The new rate - if it is the same as the second bridge rate of RM9.40 - amounts to a 68 percent increase for Touch and Go users while regular drivers would have to fork out an extra 34 percent.

Sim called on the chief minister to give an answer to Penangites on these issues as soon as possible.