Najib: Dr M says no to rail transport but wants new national car?

Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak today questioned his successor Dr Mahathir Mohmad's rationale of cancelling major public transportation project on grounds of a ballooning national debt but is keen on restarting a national car project.

"The Harapan government should proceed with the public transportation projects such as the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High-Speed Rail (HSR) and MRT3 projects instead of wanting to start another national car company and re-implementing protectionist measures that will only burden the people with higher car prices and financing costs," Najib said in a statement tonight.

Najib said when he was prime minister, he had sought to fix these issues which he described as "legacy problems".

"During my time as prime minister, I had made it a priority to gradually reduce car prices by a gradual reduction in taxes and by introducing incentives while expanding public transportation projects.

As a result, car prices now cost less than when I first became prime minister while usage of public transportation has surged.

"In the long-run, such measures to correct a legacy problem of the past will benefit the people to the tune of hundreds of billions of ringgit while providing more efficient, more cost-effective, less congested and less polluting transportation options," he said.

Najib said Mahathir should not scrap public transportation projects simply because it was the former's initiative.

"Do not cancel such public transportation projects just because I started them and reverting to projects merely based on pride that will cause greater harm to the rakyat," he said.

The new Pakatan Harapan government, which came to power on May 9, had announced that it will scrap the HSR and MRT3 projects due to mounting government debt.

Mahathir, in his first overseas visit in Japan, had told the Nikkei Conference that Malaysia had the ambition to start a new national car.

This was after the previous government pushed Proton to sell a 49.9 percent stake to China's Geely. - Mkini