A reprieve obtained by the state that halted the eviction of 52 families in a fishing village in Permatang Tepi Laut in Batu Maung provided an opportunity for Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng to rebut critics who berate him for sins ranging from religious presumption to milder forms of ethnic cleansing.   

Negotiations over the past year between the developer of the site in the south-eastern corner of Penang island and PKR state assemblyperson Abdul Malek Abul Kassim resulted in the former revoking a notice of eviction issued earlier to the villagers.

NONE Lim took advantage of the occasion today of presenting the notice of countermand to rebut the more partisan criticisms launched at his administration by his mainly Umno rivals.

“This place was targeted for development by the previous administration,” said Lim to the villagers.

“Fortunately, this developer was amenable to your state assemblyperson’s pleadings on your behalf,” he added.

“Had the developer been more closely linked to the previous administration, he would not have budged and we would have faced a situation where the state government would have been accused of heedlessness,” he elaborated.

“Many of our problems with respect to evictions were inherited from the previous government. We can only help ease the problems when the developer is not tied to the previous government’s apron strings.

“If they are tied too closely, we, the Pakatan Rakyat administration, get hammered by those who incite the developers to resist the state’s efforts at mediation and by those who are victims of the eviction itself.”

Criticisms ‘grossly unfair’

Lim described such criticisms as “grossly unfair” as the state government had nothing to do with the inception of the problem.

“But we have soldiered on because our government is devoid of special interests, and at the end of a long day, our frugality on the costs of administration has enabled us to help those at the bottom of the social scale with handouts to the poor and to senior citizens,” said Lim.

“That is why the auditor-general has for the second year running praised us for prudent financial management and transparency. We are tops in the country in respect of those virtues.

“This our critics don’t like to hear us being praised, so they peddle slander and stir a witches’ brew of racial and religious slurs that fortunately have not misled you people into rejecting a government devoted to your welfare,” asserted Lim.

The CM praised the Batu Maung assemblyperson as an exemplar of disinterested interestedness, saying that “Abdul Malek has no special interests and is able to work hard for the people all the time.”

Earlier, Malek told members of this small fishing village that the reprieve won was temporary but it held promise of turning Permatang Tepi Laut into “an eco-tourism site whose attractions would be the beautiful vistas and the availability of fresh seafood.”

“We are working on some ideas with the developer which if they bear fruit would convert the reprieve won today into a long-term solution which would benefit the developer and people who live and earn their living here,” said the state executive councilor for religion, domestic trade and consumer affairs.