Gerakan tells Guan Eng to come clean on Tantawi settlement

(The Star) – Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng should come clean over the court settlement he had with PAS’ Nasrudin Hassan as it raises more questions than answers, said Gerakan secretary-general Liang Teck Meng (pic).

Liang said the PAS information chief only agreed to withdraw a portion of his allegation against Lim, in relation to how the Penang Tunnel project was awarded.

However, the Simpang Renggam MP said Nasrudin did not withdraw other parts of his allegations, which had resulted in the initiation of the defamation suit in August 2014.

The other parts, he said, include that the Penang Tunnel did not hold sufficient public consultations before approving the project and that the related highways were  overpriced.

The PAS Temerloh MP had also claimed that the Penang government has been running operation budget deficits for many years and only registered an overall budget surpluses with a huge increase in the sale of “increasingly scarce Penang state land”.

Nasrudin had also chastised DAP for being “hypocritical” for attacking former Selangor mentri besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim for the now scrapped Kinrara-Damansara Expressway Project while it had allowed Penang to agree to a 30-year toll concession for the tunnel project.

“I note that media reports and Nasrudin Hassan suggest that the above allegations were not withdrawn in the RM10,000 court settlement,” said Liang.

He added the allegations made by Nasrudin were serious and will affect the future financial security of Penang and well-being of the people.

“He (Lim) must confirm whether the other serious allegations by Nasrudin were similarly withdrawn,” he said.

If these allegations were not withdrawn or addressed in his settlement with Nasrudin, Liang said this would only give the impression that Lim admits to the allegations thrown against his administration.