Dr M: Lim’s statement in Mandarin a minor mistake

PETALING JAYA: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has come to the defence of Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng over the flak he received for issuing a statement in Chinese, although admitting it was a “minor mistake”.

“I don’t want to make it an issue. Sometimes, we make mistakes,” the Prime Minister said when asked about the issue.

“I think he issued (the statement) in three languages, but for the Chinese audience he issued a statement in Chinese, that’s all,” Dr Mahathir said.

Lim was criticised by many after he issued a statement in Chinese – ironically, to defend his use of trilingual statements for certain ministerial matters.

On Sunday, he issued the statement in Mandarin to defend his use of trilingual official Finance Ministry statements on Facebook. However, this infuriated social media users and others who said they had to rely on translation tools to understand his comments.

Dr Mahathir, who was asked whether he would advise Lim not to issue any more statements in Mandarin from now, said he would not.

In a statement yesterday, Lim said the Finance Ministry always prioritised the use of Bahasa Malaysia as the medium of communication.

Rejecting claims that Mandarin had replaced Bahasa Malaysia as the official language of the ministry, he pointed toward the ministry’s official website as evidence.

He said that on treasury.gov.my, press releases were only available in Bahasa Malaysia and English.

“Official statements in Bahasa Malaysia would be translated to English for the international media, and should the need arise, translated to Mandarin,” Lim said.

“I do not understand why the translation of official statements in Bahasa Melayu to English, or occasionally to Mandarin, can be twisted to state that the official language of the Finance Ministry has been changed to Mandarin,” Lim said.