A very vindictive man (2) - Vengeance is mine

NST of October 16, 2016 reported:

Mahathir Mohamad was playing to the gallery when he told a small rally in Kota Baru on Friday night that he would pay oil royalty to Kelantan should Barisan Nasional lose power.

“If we win, then we can give the royalties,” he said, speaking to a 5,000-strong crowd at a ceramah organised by former Kota Baru MP Datuk Zaid Ibrahim and featuring Kelantan Parti Amanah Negara (PAN) adviser Datuk Husam Musa. Dr Mahathir is chairman of the new PPBM, an Umno splinter party.

Well, this is coming from the former prime minister, who once denied Kelantan oil royalty when he was in power, and who said recently that anyone who “bribes” voters or entices them with a reward is akin to feeding them “dedak” (livestock feed).

This is the same man, who in 1990, cancelled the RM600 million water development funds for Kelantan when Pas took over the state that year. Pas has been ruling the state since then. For the record, Putrajaya last month (2016) signed an agreement to pump in money to develop and manage Kelantan’s water resources.

Husam, a former Pas leader and ex-Kelantan exco member who has joined PAN to campaign against Pas, had in 2011 accused Dr Mahathir of betraying the Malays.

He cited the example of the Federal Government’s decision under Dr Mahathir to land natural gas from Kelantan waters in the southern Thai province of Songkhla instead of Kelantan. And many years later, Dr Mahathir and Husam shared the same stage.

Dr Mahathir also did the same thing in Terengganu when Pas took over power in the oil- and gas-rich state in November 1999. Three months later, he cancelled the state’s oil royalty which the state was entitled to.

Malaysiakini - Wee: Was ECRL called off to ‘punish’ non-Harapan states:

MCA deputy president Wee Ka Siong has questioned if the Pakatan Harapan government had called off the construction of the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) to “punish” East Coast states that failed to vote for the ruling coalition in the 14th general election (GE14). 

He also urged that contract and feasibility study documents for the megaproject be declassified for public scrutiny.

Referring to a YouTube video that showed parts of the project had been completed, Wee said the clip raised questions as to if the ECRL ought to be scrapped.

“Some (have) even wondered if this cancellation was a punishment to the three states that could have benefited the most from this project – Kelantan, Terengganu and Pahang – as they are states not under the control of the Harapan government.

“It is only fair that Malaysians are given all the facts so that we can evaluate for ourselves if Harapan’s allegations are true and if cancelling the three projects is the right decision,” he said in a statement published on his Facebook page last night.

Kelantan and Terengganu are administered by PAS while Pahang is under BN.

MM Online - Najib challenges Putrajaya to RCI on cancelled China projects (extracts):

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 23 — Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak called for royal inquiries into the cancelled East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) and two gas pipeline projects that Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said were monumentally “stupid”.

He said the public have a right to know all the reasons why the projects were cancelled on the Malaysian government’s insistence, instead of only depending on the allegations made against him and the defeated Barisan Nasional (BN) government.

“I urge the government to conduct RCIs (royal commissions of inquiry) into all three projects to determine if there was wrongdoing,” he wrote on his Facebook page this evening.

Commenting on the prime minister’s announcements from Beijing, China, Najib said the decision would be detrimental to residents on the east coast of the peninsula.

The former PM also rejected the argument that the ECRL’s cost had ballooned from RM30 billion to RM55 billion, saying the initial figure was derived in 2009 and for a 545km line, which has since increased to 688km, including a 50km tunnel.

On the allegation that the financing was exorbitant, he insisted that the loan for the project attracted 3.25 per cent in annual interest for the 20-year tenure.

He also insisted that Malaysia could have afforded all three projects even if they amounted to RM90 billion, as estimated by Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng, but claimed this was no longer possible with the removal of the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

“I don’t want to comment about the remark that ‘Najib is stupid’ or whatnot made by Dr Mahathir in China. The projects’ agreements did have exit clauses,” he maintained.

“These are not like agreements for IPP concessions or tolled highways from Mahathir’s time, which cause the PH (Pakatan Harapan) government to fail in delivering its pledge to abolish tolls.”

Related:

(1) Personal anger & destructive meanness towards Rakyat.

Extracts: The economic truth and benefit to the rakyat of Malaysia are now revealed by both Professor Edmund Terence Gomez (UM) and Lau Zheng Zhou (Director CPPS), that projects contracted during Najib's premiership have been actually good and beneficial to the rakyat.

But they were initially cancelled and then "frozen" because "someone" was either furious at Najib (and thus his projects) or plain jealous of Jibby he himself hasn't been the author of those beneficial projects

(1) A very vindictive man.


Extracts: Yet Mahathir has now terminated AAB's advisory role to Petronas on the flimsiest of bullshit, that Petronas now no longer requires an advisor. How imperialistically Mahathir has decided.

Poor AAB should have been left in that prestigious role as per tradition, which Mahathir enjoyed for 13 years, but no, Mahathir has such a vindictive heart that he had to humiliate AAB although the 5th PM has always displayed ultimate courtesy to him.