Najib: Shafie should blame himself for Sabah's lack of progress

KIMANIS POLLS | Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak claimed that Sabah Chief Minister Mohd Shafie Apdal has only himself to blame for Sabah's lack of progress.

Commenting on Warisan's campaign strategy, Najib told reporters yesterday that Shafie was once a minister in charge of rural development with a large budget and that should have been used to develop Sabah.

"What is his excuse for the Pan Borneo highway being abandoned? It was approved by the federal government for the people of Sabah. The highway should have been completed (by now) if BN was in power.

"There are projects such as RM1 billion to upgrade dilapidated schools. What is the status of these projects?" he said when met while campaigning in Kimanis.

Both examples cited by Najib come under the jurisdiction of the federal government. The Pan Borneo Highway project was stalled briefly when the new Pakatan Harapan administration took over and conducted a review.

Najib's claim that the project would be completed by now is inaccurate because when it was launched by Najib in 2015 in Sarawak and the Sabah launch in 2016, the targeted completion year was 2023.

As for school upgrading projects, it comes under the purview of the education ministry and not the rural development ministry.

Shafie was rural development minister from 2009 until he was sacked by Najib in 2015 during the height of local investigations into 1MDB. Shafie went on to form Warisan and defeated BN in Sabah during the 2018 elections.

Currently, Warisan and BN are pointing fingers at each other over Sabah's lack of economic progress. According to Department of Statistic figures, Sabah is the fourth poorest state in 2018 in terms of GDP per capita, ahead of Perlis, Kedah and Kelantan.

BN's campaign had honed in on Shafie's track record as the rural development minister for Sabah's stunted economy while the chief minister is blaming BN for marginalising the state.

In his defence, Shafie said whatever resources allocated to the rural development ministry had to be shared with the rest of the country and only a fraction ended up in Sabah.

Shafie said BN's campaign message of blaming the problem on him was also in effect blaming past Umno leaders such as Abdul Razak and Ghaffar Baba who once held the rural minister's post.

Meanwhile, Najib also claimed that BN was at the forefront at attempting to restore Sabah's rights according to the Malaysia Agreement (MA63) and "drastic" policy measures were implemented.

"We do this administratively. For example, 90 percent of school teachers in Sabah are locals... We did what we could administratively. Legislative matters take time," he said.

On Home Minister Muhyiddin Yassin's claim that Pas Sementara Sabah (PSS) was BN's idea, Najib claimed that his administration never would have approved it.

"Although it was proposed by the Royal Commission (in 2014), we didn't implement it. BN rejected it," he said.

The PSS is a means of documenting foreigners without valid papers in Sabah, which has the highest number of undocumented people in the country.

It was introduced by Putrajaya in September last year. Putrajaya has maintained that the document was not a pathway to citizenship or permanent residency.

However, BN's campaign machinery has painted the PSS as an attempt by Warisan to bring foreigners into the country.

 - Mkini