Najib Abdul Razak has attempted to reverse the negative connotations associated with the 'cash is king' phrase often attributed to him.
At the Hard Truth: Cash is King forum in the Umno headquarters last night, the former premier said his successor and firm critic Dr Mahathir Mohamad had misunderstood the phrase.
What 'cash is king' really means, according to Najib, is that the people come first.
“When I say ‘cash is king’ I don’t mean it in a literal way, what I mean is the rakyat are 'kings'. That is why we use money to help the people.
“Maybe he (Mahathir) does not understand or he deliberately does not want to understand," he said.
'Cash is king' is commonly taken to mean that money can be used to buy anything, including power and influence.
In the lead up to the 14th general election, Mahathir had criticised Najib for adopting this approach to governance, consolidating power and allegedly engaging in corrupt practices, such as in the 1MDB scandal.
'BR1M helped all races'
At the forum, Najib also spoke about the BR1M cash handouts distributed during his administration.
He credited the scheme for stimulating the economy and improving the people’s purchasing power, adding that BR1M was the brainchild of Bank Negara.
Najib stressed that the cash handouts benefited those in the B40 income group, whether they lived in urban or rural areas, and regardless of their ethnicities or political leanings.
He denied that BR1M was pro-Malay, contending that Indian and Chinese Malaysians ultimately benefited from the scheme as well.
"If we look at it at a glance, maybe if we see it statistically, of course those who got most of the BR1M handouts were Malays, the bumiputera Malays.
"However, from a percentage view, Indians got the most. This is because though their number is not huge, the percentage of those who qualified for BR1M was bigger than the Malays," he told the audience.
"If the Chinese felt that they didn’t get (BR1M) or that very few got any benefits, look at the purchasing power. Who has the purchasing power?
"Now, the ethnic Chinese-owned supermarkets are closed, there are those sellers who feel that their business has dropped. (This is what happens) when the purchasing power lowers, and the purchasing power is with the Malays.
"So when in the first round the Malays got (BR1M), they then buy things from (the Chinese), then the Chinese will profit. So everyone benefited from our policies,” he explained.
After Pakatan Harapan came into power, BR1M was scrapped and replaced with a slightly different handout scheme named Bantuan Sara Hidup. - Mkini
Now he's saying another thing
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