IT looks like the cat's out of the bag and Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng has begun to show his true colours -- that he does not take kindly to criticism.
Saying they should come up with constructive criticism, he said those who objected to his idea should substantiate their arguments with facts and not just emotions.
"Otherwise, they are just wasting their time.
"I accept their criticism but it is not right to start blaming us when the park idea is just at a proposal stage."
Surely Lim's idea of calling for feedback is not just to get glowing praises to everything that he proposes.
Lim had proposed a tiger park on a 40ha plot owned by the Penang Municipal Council known as Pondok Durian Cap Kaki in Relau.
However, the proposal has received a litany of criticism since it was put forth.
Besides the people, others who have objected to the proposal include non-governmental groups like the Malaysian Conservation Alliance for Tigers (MyCat), Sahabat Alam Malaysia and The World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF-Malaysia), who know what they are talking about.
Gerakan has also come out against the proposal.
The tiger park idea and how it is being handled by Lim's administration actually brings back a sense of deja vu to the people of Penang.
It has all the makings of how the previous state government handled the much-despised Penang Global City Centre (PGCC) project.
Despite all-out criticism against the project, the Gerakan-led state administration failed to pay heed to the people's feelings.
The project was fast-tracked by the state government without any public input.
The state government paid the ultimate price for its folly when Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon's administration was booted out, partly due to the PGCC saga, in the March 8 polls last year.
While the tiger park project has brought some unwanted publicity to Penang, several other bewildering incidents involving the state administration have also become the talk of the town.
It involves no less than Lim's very own political secretary, Ng Wei Aik.
Ng, who is Komtar assemblyman, was involved in an operation carried out by the Welfare Department to round up homeless people in George Town recently.
At one point, Ng gave chase after a homeless man tried to run away.
His zealousness in catching the vagrant has been picked up in the blogs and questions are being raised as to his action, which has been described as nothing but an attempt to get cheap publicity and score brownie points.
With such bewildering antics of politicians in the state, Penang is set for some interesting times ahead. New Straits Times
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