A BN parliamentarian said yesterday that no matter how strongly the opposition protests against the government’s proposal to build the 100-storey Warisan Merdeka tower, they will eventually accept the idea.

Mohamed Aziz, the Seri Gading MP, said that the opposition bench will embrace the tower which is expected to cost RM5 billion, in his 2011 Budget debate yesterday.

NONE Mohamed said that the opposition should not question the move as they will end up “eat(ing) their own words”.

The objections are pointless, he said likening it to the opposition’s rejection of Putrajaya as the country’s administrative central when the idea was first mooted by then-prime minister Mahathir Mohamad.

The vocal MP argued in his 20-minute speech that the opposition behaved similarly against the construction of Putrajaya but it has now become their "ultimate goal to helm the administrative capital".

“Before this, they even said they wanted to auction off Putrajaya because they said it was a waste of taxpayers’ money. Now they want to take over Putrajaya,” he said mockingly.

“They also used to condemn the construction of Penang bridge, but now they want a second Penang bridge!” exclaimed Mohamed.

‘Opposition manipulating facts’

Speaking up in support of Mohamed, BN Kinabatangan MP Bung Mokhtar Radin rebuked the opposition for being ungrateful about what the BN government has done for the country.

He scathingly said that the opposition are trying to “manipulate” facts by scaring the public into believing that the country’s largest fund management company Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) will use their investor dividends to build the massive tower.

PNB is said to be the company in the forefront to undertake the multibillion ringgit project.

“But PNB has made it clear that they will not touch the government’s money nor the unit trust funds to develop the skyscraper. Instead, they said they will use their own private funds to bear the cost,” argued Bung.

anti mega tower facebook group 191010 01 Pakatan has been intensively campaigning against the proposal, saying that it will end up to be another white elephant project in the country.

The 100-storey tower, is however, not just rejected by the Pakatan Rakyat legislators.

A Facebook page to protest against the controversial project, which was announced in the 2011 Budget on Oct 15, has received more than 150,000 supporters.

The page, called “1M Malaysians Reject 100-storey Mega Tower”, was launched last week after the project was unveiled in Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s Budget speech.