State Barisan Nasional Chairman Teng Chang Yeow said this came after Lim repeated a “temberang” (lie) on the state’s fish farming industry at the recent Penang DAP annual convention.
Teng said it was surprising that Lim chose to utter the words “practically nothing” with regards to fish farming in the state during BN’s time — despite already being told that fish farming had indeed thrived before DAP took over.
“Just 15 days after I had said Penang’s fish farming industry had existed since 2001, he chose to go at it again, now with different words — ‘practically nothing’.
“In his (Lim’s) address at the Oxford University sometime back, he had used ‘basically nothing’ to describe the fishing industry under BN.
“If he does not have the time to check his speech, I will send the speeches he made and with the definition of these words to the chief minister’s office so he can see it for himself,” Teng said at a press conference today.
Two weeks ago, Teng had slammed Lim for saying Penang’s fish farming industry was “nothing” and only grew exponentially when Pakatan took over in 2008.
Teng provided statistics to back his claim, saying it was the BN government’s initiative in 1999 that spurred the growth of the fish farming industry, peaking at respectable numbers since 2001.
At last Sunday’s DAP convention, Lim appeared to have repeated his claim, saying: “Productivity of fish farming rose from practically nothing, about 2,714.60 metric tonnes in 2007 to 28,964.95 metric tonnes in 2015, an increase of nearly 10 times.”
In his speech on Oct 14, 2015, at the Merton College in Oxford University, Lim had said: “It would surprise you to learn that this (fishing) industry grew from basically nothing in 2008 to a RM1.2 billion (£180 million) industry seven years later.” The speech was uploaded to limguaneng.com.
State Agro-based Industries Committee Chairman Dr Afif Bahardin said the fish farming industry in Penang had a drop in output between 2001 and 2007.
He said after Pakatan’s takeover in 2008, the industry improved leaps and bounds, with last year’s output nine times higher than the output in 2006.