'Koh has overslept and refuses to wake up'

Former Penang chief minister Koh Tsu Koon has taken the hardest of hits today from his former colleague Lee Kah Choon.

The Invest Penang executive chief refuted Koh's argument that it takes more than five years of courting for investment to come into Penang.

Koh (left) has said much of the credit for investment in Penang which at a record high, is due to work from the previous BN administration, rather than the efforts of the current Pakatan led government.

Once tipped by Koh himself as one of the candidates for the chief minister's post in the run up to the 2008 polls, Lee has now accused him of "oversleeping or worse, refusing to wake up".

To add to Koh's woes, there seems to be a concerted effort by forces within and outside Gerakan to seal his political career for good.

Lee, a former Jelutong MP , said that Koh's statement neither tallies with the real situation on the ground nor with the Client Charter of the Malaysian Industrial Development Authority (Mida).

"If there is any truth to the argument that investment takes more than five years to materialise, a logical conclusion would be that negotiations had broken down during the previous administration.

"It's the change of government, then, that has rekindled the investors' interest in Penang, which they have followed through with actual investments," said Lee.

Crossing swords

Once considered Koh's "blue-eyed boy" Lee had been crossing swords with the Gerakan president over the time taken by investors to decide on investing their money in the state.

Yesterday, Lee (right) suggested that Koh, a federal minister, may have been talking in his sleep when the latter said that investment decisions take time to be made.

Not to be outdone, Koh criticised Lee for "sleeping on the job", adding that he knew of one such company which took years to decide to invest in Penang.

The two had faced off when Koh accused Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng of "unfairly" claiming credit that should rightly be attributed to BN.

It seems that Koh's other colleagues in Gerakan preferred to stay out of the quarrel.

When contacted, Gerakan state chief Dr. Teng Hock Nan merely said "they should stop quarelling" at some point.

He turned the tables instead on the state government, saying its officers, including Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng was in "the mood for quarrelling" whenever a comment was made against their work.

He then told Malaysiakini not to drag him into this Koh vs Lee spat, saying both will stop the argument soon.

Record high

Meanwhile, Lee said that the investment figures according to Mida for Penang last year was RM12.237 billion with 128 items of investment.

This is a record high for Penang and for the first time, the state has topped the investment league table in Malaysia, he added.

According to Mida's Client Charter, all incentives applications will be evaluated within six weeks, Lee pointed out.

"When we talk about investment into Penang, we are not talking about shifting the entire company," he said.

"Anyway, 99 percent of the investment into Penang does not involve the shifting of the entire company. It involves the investors' expansion or investment into new facilities to utilise the comparative advantages that Penang can offer," he stressed.