This is in response to Dr Sharom Ahmat’s letter to the editor published in The Star on page 32 dated April 4, 2016.
Dr Sharom Ahmat, as a city councillor as well as a colleague to Dr Lim Mah Hui ( photo above ), I humbly beg to differ on your opinion that the chief minister needs to apologise to Dr Lim Mah Hui on the issue and allow me to explain why. First of all, on this particular comment:
“If only the CM had listened to the second part of what Dr Lim had said i.e. in 2015 with five tow trucks working two shifts a day, they were towing an average of 2.5 cars a day, he would have realised the total was 625 a month!”
If one were to hear the recordings again, you can easily hear that the year 2015 was not mentioned. Please also note that the statement above of “the five tow trucks working two shifts a day” was never mentioned in the recordings and what was mentioned and I hereby quote was “today, we have five or six tow trucks but we can't move beyond average of 2.5 tru... cars towed per day” which itself was an error as if we times that by 30 days, we would only have 75 cars towed per month and this error was only clarified by Dr Lim in his statement dated March 21, 2016.
The chief minister’s statement on Dr Lim was issued on March 12, 2016 and it was based on a China Press report published on March 1, 2016 that alleged that Dr Lim Mah Hui had said that only one or two cars were towed per month. This was not mentioned in the dialogue between the chief minister and members of the Penang Forum however, as the story has been reported, it may have been said after the dialogue or elsewhere.
Dr Lim’s clarification only came on March 21, 2016 which was 20 days after the China Press report came out, once again, the chief minister’s statement was on March 12, 2016 was in response to the China Press report on March 1, 2016.
There were therefore grounds for the chief minister to counter the allegations mentioned in the report as Dr Lim never clarified any errors in the report for 11 days at that point. It is the responsibility of an individual to clarify with the media should he or she feel that he or she had been misquoted.
Indeed Dr Lim is a well respected Penangite and I do respect him as well. I am sure the reason Dr Lim was offered the leadership of the enforcement unit of the Penang Island City Council (MBPP) was because of the respect he has gained by all of us. Once again, I would like to humbly ask Dr Lim to take up the challenge given by the chief minister to lead the enforcement unit.
I would also like to clarify that the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are always respected by all of us. There will always be disagreements when it comes to human interactions but mutual respect will always be there. The NGOs should continue to voice their opinions but as we can agree to disagree, emotions of the NGOs should also be kept in check so that only accurate facts and the truth will always be spoken.
Please also respect us enough to accept not all politicians are the same as the ones from the BN, we do genuinely care for Penang and the welfare of all Penangites as much as the NGOs say they do.
CHRIS LEE CHUN KIT is a city councillor with the Penang Island City Council (Majlis Bandaraya Pulau Pinang) representing the DAP.
