PRIME Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has rubbished the claim made by PAS assistant secretary-general Mohd Syahir Che Sulaiman that Kelantan has been sidelined by the federal government.
Calling such claims baseless, Anwar said that the allocation given to Kelantan was the highest under the 2023 Madani Budget for flood mitigation plan works and providing clean water for its people.
“This is a baseless view, one without facts, as Kelantan was given the highest allocation compared with other states (under the 2023 Budget).
“As a young leader in PAS, he (Mohd Syahir) should instead be more outspoken in fixing the internal problem (within his party) while also giving solutions to resolve issues in Kelantan,” Anwar said after his speech after the 36th Asia-Pacific Roundtable (36APR) held by Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur today (Aug 10).
In fact, the allocation given by the current federal government was higher than that given by Perikatan Nasional (PN) when it was in power back in 2020 during Tan Sri Muhyiddin’s administration.
“I approved every important suggestion put forth by the Kelantan state government. In fact, the allocation given now is higher than what Bersatu and PAS gave when they were in administration
“They were also busy questioning other things, and the allocation was less than now. So, in what way did the unity government treat Kelantan like a ‘stepchild’?”
The PKR president’s speech was referring to the statement made by Mohd Syahir that Kelantan was indeed the stepchild of the government when debating “Malaysia’s New Economic Model” with Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli last night (Aug 9).
Mohd Syahir was asked to explain why Melaka and Negri Sembilan could flourish compared to Kelantan.
The Bachok MP, in response, stressed that the main reason why Kelantan was still poor was because of “federalism”, in which the state was denied its rights, including oil royalties, as it had been under a different administration than the federal government.
He claimed that in the 33 years that Kelantan had been ruled by PAS, the state had never enjoyed federalism as Melaka or Negri Sembilan had.
Last Thursday (Aug 3), PAS Youth chief Ahmad Fadhli Shaari also mentioned how Kelantan is being sidelined by the federal government by claiming that Kelantan’s continuous water issues stemmed from Putrajaya’s decision to sideline the state.
According to Ahmad Fadhli, Kelantan has been treated like UMNO’s ‘stepchild’ for the past 30 years, with grants and allocations allocated to other states except Kelantan during the Barisan Nasional (BN) administration. – Aug 10, 2023
Main pic credit: Bernama
