GEORGE TOWN, April 16 — The Penang Barisan Nasional's (BN) 60-point manifesto plagiarises from Pakatan Harapan's (PH) policies, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng alleged today.
Lim, who is now caretaker Penang chief minister, claimed that some of the rival coalition's pledges were lifted directly his administration's initiatives.
“They even opposed some of our policies (before) and now they copied these and introduced them in their manifesto,” he told a press conference in his office today.
Among these were his Pakatan Harapan pact's senior appreciation programme, which he said BN had previously mocked.
The Penang government introduced a RM100 annual payment for elderly residents in the state, which it later increased by 30 per cent.
It is among the social welfare programmes the PH parties have introduced since winning the state a decade ago.
“Now, they are introducing the exact same thing and increased the amount to RM300 each year in their manifesto,” he said.
Lim also criticised another promise in the Penang BN manifesto that all land 250 feet above sea level will be gazetted as permanent forest reserves.
“In order to do this, it means they will have to use up a lot of state funds to buy up this land as some are privately owned,” he said.
On Penang BN’s promise to cancel the controversial RM6.3 billion undersea tunnel project and related land reclamation project, Lim said this was an attempt to sabotage his pact's infrastructure plans.
Claiming public transportation was non-existent when he first took over the state, Lim said PH was working to address this and the undersea tunnel was part of such efforts.
“We will let the people decide if they want to believe in the sincerity of [BN's] promises,” he said.
Penang BN launched its manifesto yesterday, accompanied by a document titled “51 empty promises of PH state government” that picked apart the rival group.
The BN manifesto pledges to resolve traffic, flood and housing issues in the state.
