Friday 29 Mar 2024
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JOHOR BARU: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said yesterday he never once questioned Umno’s funding while he was party deputy president because he knew that the president was entrusted to manage such monies.

Najib, who is Umno president, said this had always been the party’s practice since the leadership of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, The Malaysian Insider reported.

“When I was deputy president, I never questioned the party’s funds because that is under the scope of the president. When Dr Mahathir led Umno, the deputy never said anything. This was the practice in the party.  Let us continue this practice, and trust that what I do is for the best,” Najib said when officiating at the Pasir Gudang Umno division meeting in Johor yesterday.

Najib also admitted that the Cabinet reshuffle on July 28, which saw him removing Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin as deputy prime minister, was a difficult decision to make.

“The Cabinet reshuffle was very difficult for me, but as I have said, there were reasons for it. I did not do it to hurt the feelings of Johor Umno, but for the sake of the administration, believe me,” he said.

Bernama reported Najib as saying that Umno needed to create more “keyboard warriors” to fend off negative perceptions against the party in the social media.    

Najib said the matter was essential because the way society thought was influenced more by perception rather than reality.

“The worsening dissemination of slander shows cyber space is the new battlefield rather than the physical world,” said the prime minister. 

Taking as an example the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) issue, in which allegations were flying in cyber space that the sovereign wealth fund suffered billions of ringgit in losses and had assets that had become worthless, the Prime Minister stressed that the facts were otherwise, but had been twisted around on social media so much so they had caused negative perceptions of 1MDB.

“If the assets are worthless, why would there be offers in the billions to buy Edra (1MDB’s power generation arm), land parcels at the Tun Razak Exchange and Bandar Malaysia? I can say in the next five months, 1MDB’s debts will be reduced significantly. I or 1MDB will be making the announcements on this in stages,” said Najib. 

On administering the country, Najib said much had been done by the Barisan Nasional government for the people, including the provision of 1Malaysia People’s Aid or BR1M, the Bumiputera Economic Empowerment Programme and achieving a three-fold increase in the value of government-linked companies in 20 years.  — The Malaysian Insider/Bernama

 

 

This article first appeared in digitaledge Daily, on August 10, 2015.

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