Unlike 'former leader', I care about the East Coast, says Najib

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak said his administration does not focus on developing the Klang Valley and the West Coast of Peninsular Malaysia alone.

"Our focus has been on other parts of Malaysia that had been neglected for far too long.

"We wanted our development to be fairer, more inclusive, and to raise all sectors of the population and parts of our country," Najib posted on his blog today, ahead of his Budget 2018 speech.

For example, he cited that Kelantan had been marginalised and deprived of funding for development, by a "former leader".

"(Kelantan) was deprived of critically-needed upgrades to their water infrastructure for decades by a former leader, just because it was held by an opposition party.

"To me, this is not fair, as clean water is essential for life and is the right of all Malaysians.

"Therefore, we helped Kelantan with a water restructuring agreement last year that will cost more than a billion ringgit," he said.

Putrajaya had managed to secure the compliance of every state in Peninsular Malaysia, the Federal Territories and Labuan, under the Water Services Industry Act 2006 last year.

Under the agreement, water assets owned by respective state governments and private players had to be transferred to the federal government.

The law was enacted during the Abdullah Ahmad Badawi administration.

Fair to all states, even Penang

Najib said that under his administration, there were no preferential treatments for states, citing how Putrajaya had entered into water restructuring deals with Penang and Selangor.

He argued that this would help both states reduce their debts and that Penang's debt was reduced by RM655 million.

"I strive to be fair to all states - including opposition-held states.

"(The water restructuring deal) allowed the DAP government to boast that they have reduced their state debt by 95 percent, although this was in fact due to the federal government's efforts," he said.

Najib said the people of Kelantan had also suffered from poor transportation links, which his administration hopes to address by building the toll-free central spine road and Phase 3 of the East Coast Expressway.

"The East Coast Rail Link will soon be yet another game-changer for the East Coast states," he said.

As for Sabah and Sarawak, he said his administration has more allocations for development projects than before and that the Pan Borneo Highway was one example.- Mkini