I never said ‘no’ to Penang airport upgrade, Guan Eng tells Najib

GEORGE TOWN: Penang never said no to a plan to upgrade its international airport, Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng told Prime Minister Najib Razak today.

“It is false and baseless when the prime minister accuses me of going against the upgrade of the Penang International Airport (PIA), from the current capacity of 6.5 million to 12 million.

“It was announced in the 2018 Budget, and I have thanked the prime minister for that.

“Can the prime minister prove that I have gone against the upgrade of PIA, or even voted against it in Parliament?

“The only time I remember going against anything in Parliament was on the increase in fuel costs, but I had nothing against the expansion of the PIA,” Lim said in a statement today.

At the recently-concluded Umno assembly, Najib had said that Lim was grateful to him for the PIA upgrade but that “DAP-led oppositions MPs” had also rejected the motion to approve the 2018 Budget, which the PIA upgrade is part of.

At the same Umno assembly, Kedah Umno delegate Mohd Yusof Ismail called Lim a snob for rejecting the PIA upgrade plan.

He said if Lim did not want the upgrade, the money allocated should be given to neighbouring Kedah to build the proposed Kulim International Airport.

Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai had said the PIA would be upgraded to cope with 12 million passenger arrivals per year.

He said the upgrade would see the PIA almost double its current 6.5 million passenger capacity.

However, there were no details on how much the upgrade would cost or when the upgrading work was expected to commence. - FMT