“What did Mahathir give us when he was prime minister? A pittance compared with what we are getting now. He is in no position to talk about giving us better infrastructure.
“As prime minister for 22 years, he did not do it. Is he going to start giving at 93?” Pairin said in a statement yesterday.
The PBS president was referring to Mahathir’s pledge that if Pakatan Harapan took over the federal and state governments, they would upgrade the infrastructure of both Sabah and Sarawak.
He also took the PPBM chairman to task for saying that Sabah and Sarawak need people who are not selfish to overcome problems.
“If he cared enough to look at the many new road links, resettlements, people with land to call their own, villages with electric power and clean water supply in Sabah… these were all through developments that came after his time as prime minister.
“That would make him realise who was, and still is, selfish,” Pairin said.
“Understandably, these are electoral promises from Mahathir, now that the 14th general election is near, but it begs the question of his sincerity.”
Pairin added that there had been greater empowerment of local civil servants and a return of rights, sealed in the Malaysia Agreement 1963, calling these “two issues that were ignored during Mahathir’s tenure”.
“It was Prime Minister Najib Razak who declared Malaysia Day a national public holiday, giving due recognition to the formation of Malaysia on Sept 16, 1963.
“It also gave the people of Sabah and Sarawak a stronger sense of belonging to the nation.
“It was also Najib who was bold enough to call for a Royal Commission of Inquiry on immigrants in Sabah. This resulted in a damning report about Project IC and the many other alleged misdeeds of the past administration under Mahathir.”
Since Mahathir left in 2003, Pairin said, Sabah and Sarawak had progressed by leaps and bounds.
He said this could be seen in the allocations from the federal government in Mahathir’s time compared with those of subsequent administrations.
“As we near the halfway mark of the 11th Malaysia Plan, nearly RM15 billion has already been allocated for Sabah by the federal government. This year alone, the sum stands at RM3.87 billion.
“In comparison, under the 7th Malaysia Plan (1996-2000), only RM6.93 billion was allocated.
“Under the 8th Malaysia Plan, this was almost doubled to RM13.2 billion. Under the 9th Malaysia Plan, it went up to RM17.7 billion and finally, for the 10th Malaysia Plan, we were given RM21.96 billion.”
Pairin said it was therefore extremely ironic for Mahathir to say that Sabah and Sarawak could progress at a faster rate if the leaders were “less greedy” as in reality, the states had only lagged behind when he was prime minister for 22 years.
Sabah, Sarawak admin greedy, slowing down progress, says Dr M
Sabah, Sarawak BN leaders hit back at Dr M over ‘greedy’ remark