"The urban wellbeing, housing and local government minister dare not meet the Penang chief minister because he has been lying about Putrajaya’s pledge to build affordable homes in Penang, DAP said today.

Party publicity chief Tony Pua said Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan had to resort to name-calling to distract the people over how he was unable to explain why federal government agencies wanted to build “affordable homes” priced between RM575,000 and RM1.8 million in Seberang Perai and on Penang island respectively.

“Our teachers in school used to tell us that those who resort to name-calling during arguments are those who have lost the argument, or have no argument,” said Pua in a statement.

“As the Malay saying goes ‘berani kerana benar’. The minister dare not meet the Penang chief minister because he has been telling lies to the people. On the other hand, the Penang government is ready to meet him any time, because the truth is on our side.”
Yesterday, Rahman had tweeted, “As I predicted, @tonypua would protect his ‘demigod’ DAP boss in Penang by spinning federal housing project issue in Penang. I will respond.”

“@tonypua probably doesn’t know what sarcasm meant when I said I am afraid to see his demigod boss becoz he was fierce and angry! Very funny.”

Rahman had tweeted this in response to Pua urging the former meet Lim Guan Eng over his claims that the state authorities were “sabotaging” Putrajaya's plans to build affordable homes in Penang.

Rahman was reported as saying that the federal government through its agencies such as JKP Sdn Bhd and Penang Regional Development Authority (Perda) had made several applications to build affordable houses in the state for the past three years but to no avail on the grounds that conditions were not met.

He had also said that based on a study made by Putrajaya, 30,000 Penang residents were still waiting for affordable housing including low-, low-medium- and medium-cost houses.

However, when a Malaysiakini reporter asked the minister if he would meet Lim over the matter, Rahman had reportedly replied: “He’s very fierce (bengis), he is angry all the time (selalu marah). I am frightened (takut).”

Pua said: “He should have just agreed to meet the Penang chief minister to resolve the issue in the interest of the rakyat, but he chose to dodge with a cowardly less-than-sarcastic answer.

“Worse, despite his tweet defending himself as just being sarcastic, he still hasn’t responded as to the very unsarcastic question as to whether he will meet the chief minister.”

The Petaling Jaya Utara MP said Rahman could also not explain why JKP and Perda needed to make “excessive profits of RM 149 million for the projects”, and why the two agencies should be allowed to build anything else other than low- and low-medium cost housing on the land it had acquired “for public interest purposes”.

“Even his criticism that I don’t know ‘what sarcasm meant’ doesn’t hold water. I’m pretty certain the meaning of Datuk Rahman Dahlan’s profound sarcasm is equally lost on fellow Malaysians who were just expecting a straight and responsible answer from the minister.”

Pua urged Rahman to reprimand his federal agencies for “attempting to profiteer from ordinary Malaysians”, instead of “knowingly making unfounded accusations” against the Penang government.

He added that if the minister was sincere about building homes, the latter should take a leaf out of the Penang government’s book.

He said the latter has allocated a record RM500 million to build 22,512 affordable housing units in Penang with no intention of profiting from these projects. – May 5, 2015.