However, he said he was prepared to name a top state official who had been photographed with a person recently arrested in connection with the project.
Wee’s remarks were in response to calls by Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng to name the allegedly corrupt leader.
Wee said the task of naming and charging the corrupt official or officials fell to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and the Attorney-General’s Chambers.
“That is not my job,” Wee said in a statement today. “We shall leave the naming of the corrupt state officials to the MACC,” said Wee, who is a minister in the prime minister’s department.
“However, I can name a top Penang state official who is allegedly close to a person who was recently arrested, who had received RM19 million in payments in a failed attempt to stop investigations by the MACC into the Penang tunnel project.
“This state official is close to that person and has been photographed visiting his house and also photographed in a car at the same time when that person started receiving the payments,” the statement said.
Wee appeared to be making a veiled reference to Guan Eng and a possible relationship to a businessman who was arrested by the MACC on suspicion of receiving RM19 million to halt investigations into the project.
Photographs were recently posted online showing Guan Eng with the businessman on different occasions.
Guan Eng retaliated by showing other photographs of the businessman with Star Media Group managing director and chief executive officer Wong Chun Wai, and photographs of the businessman’s wife with Barisan Nasional leaders.
Wee continued to criticise Guan Eng for avoiding a debate with him over the tunnel issue, and mocked Lim’s statement that even in the United States presidential election, the presidential candidate would not debate with the candidate for vice-president.
“Although I am not sure how the US presidential elections can suddenly become an excuse, I must remind Guan Eng that this debate is about a RM20.5 billion project that his state executive council had approved.
“It is a project that he had defended for many years in his own state in which he is a state assemblyman, a member of Parliament, and chief minister.
Wee said Guan Eng owed Malaysians an answer in relation to the project and this could only come through an open debate.
The massive Penang project has been a hot issue in 2013 and 2014 and came under renewed scrutiny by the Barisan Nasional following the MACC investigation.
The 7.2km undersea tunnel will connect George Town’s Pangkor Road with Bagan Ajam in Butterworth. It is scheduled to begin in 2023.
The three new roads will also be built, from Air Itam to the Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu Expressway (5.7km); Tanjung Bungah to Teluk Bahang (10.53km); and Jalan Pangkor-Gurney Drive junction to Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu Expressway (4.1km).