THE state and Federal governments must work together for the benefit of the people, says Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow.
He said he has not changed since making his call on this during his maiden speech in Parliament in 2008 when Tun Abdullah Badawi was then the Prime Minister.
Although the people had voted for the Opposition (Pakatan Harapan) to run the Penang government, Chow said he told Pak Lah that the Federal Government (then under Barisan Nasional) must accept that fact and provide federal funding to the state.
“The state government must do its level best to link with the federal agencies to get the federal ministers’ attention so that they can see what Penang had been denied for many, many years before this,” Chow said in his speech at the Deepavali open house jointly hosted by Jelutong and Datok Keramat service centres at Methodist Boys School today.
“The state and Federal governments need to work together to resolve some issues. Let us continue to work together because politicians come and go, but the people remain and they want to benefit from government policies.”
Chow said many federal ministers like to come to Penang to launch their ministry’s initiatives because Penang has been performing rather well in many areas.
He added that they wanted to leverage on Penang so that they could show their ministry’s performance in Penang, knowing the likelihood of success was much higher because the state has a good network and good policies already in place to accept all these federal initiatives.
“Sometimes when you see I am in deep thought, I am thinking about how to galvanise or tap on to federal resources to help Penang achieve our vision, to help Penang move ahead and to bring more development to Penang.
“Penang, being a small state in size and population but great in economic development, wants to play a very important role not only to grow Penang but also Malaysia.
“That is our purpose in wanting a closer collaboration between state and federal relationship.”
Also present at the Deepavali celebration were Jelutong MP RSN Rayer, Datok Keramat assemblyman Jagdeep Singh, who is the state Local Government, Housing, Town and Country Planning Committee chairman, Pengkalan Kota assemblyman Daniel Gooi Zi Sen and Air Itam assemblyman Joseph Ng Soon Siang.
Story by Danny Ooi
Pix by Adleena Rahayu Ahmad Radzi