The government's plan to create 35,000 new jobs through the Economic Transformation Program's (ETP) 19 new projects is going to cost the rakyat RM2 million per job, says Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng.

According to Lim, the BN government had announced 19 more projects under the ETP that boasts to generate almost RM67 billion in investment, a gross national income of RM36 billion and that will create 35,000 new jobs to make Malaysia a high-income nation.

NONE Doing the math, the Penang CM said, “In other words, RM67 billion is required to create 35,000 new jobs, or close to RM2 million for each new job.

“Should RM2 million be required to create a new job? That is really a record” quipped Lim.

Lim was speaking at DAP's closed-door national election workshop in Kuala Lumpur today.

Lim alleges that spending RM2 million for each job created clearly shows the leakages and corruption by the ruling government that must be stopped, saying that only Pakatan’s win in the next general election can address this.

“Clearly it is not Pakatan’s reforms that will bankrupt the country, but BN’s corrupt practices,” he said.

The ETP projects, said Lim, do nothing to address the country’s poor, where 40 percent of the population receives 14.3 percent of the national income while the top 20 percent receives 50 percent.

“In other words, more than 10 million Malaysians in the bottom 40 percent of the population earns an average income of RM1, 500 per month,” said Lim.

'We've walked the talk'

The chief minister said Pakatan’s plan was not idle talk, as Pakatan states have already implemented the programmes and they have not bankrupted these states.

“In fact, Penang is regarded as having the best performance in the country in 2009,” said Lim.

Lim says the state had the largest budget surplus in Penang’s history with RM 88 million in 2008 and RM 77 million in 2009.

The plans implemented included programmes for the poor, that Lim says has never even been implemented during BN’s 51 years of rule.

The CM said Pakatan has instead carried them out in just three years in power.

The DAP secretary general blasted the ruling government’s leakages that amount to “at least RM28 billion each year”.

“With 2.1 million elderly in Malaysia, our payment of RM1,000 to aid this group only amounts to RM2.1 billion, or 10 percent of the RM28 billion (that has been lost through leakages).”