Terengganu Menteri Besar Ahmad Said denied that the BN-led state administration had orchestrated a land grab on plots given out by the previous PAS administration.

He told a press conference in Kuala Besut that  the land has always been government land because it was not issued according to procedure.

NONE "In the previous administration, PAS distributes land through Jawatankuasa Syura Rakyat (JSR) by issuing their own forms instead of those from the Land Office," he said, while stressing the state has rules that have to be followed.

He was responding to PAS Besut division chief Wan Azhar Wan Ahmad's ( right ) allegation that BN has been " erasing " PAS' contribution in the state since taking power in 2004, such as by retaking land it had handed out.

This allegedly includes the site of a 72-unit low-cost apartment block officially launched by Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin on Saturday in Kampung Lay Out, Tok Saboh, which lies within the Kuala Besut state constituency.

Five families were supposedly evicted in the process.

No land title

Ahmad claimed PAS collected between RM500 to RM1,000 for each plot of land, but the process did not go through the Land Office.

Emphasising his credentials as a former land administrator, he said it is the government's right to give out land, not a party's.

"As long as no land title is given, even if you have paid, the land belongs to the government. It has the right to take it back," he said.

Earlier, Ahmad was attending the groundbreaking ceremony of a RM28 million secondary school project in Alor Peroi, Kuala Besutn with Muhyiddin and BN Kuala Besut candidate Tengku Zaihan Che Ku Abdul Rahman.

Both Ahmad and Muhyiddin also took the opportunity to urge some 500 people attending the ceremony to vote for Tengku Zaihan.

In his speech, Ahmad also said that the RM10.35 million low-cost housing block in Kampung Lay Out, which is about 1.5 kilometres from the venue, would be given away free, instead of saying it "might" be given away as he did on Saturday.

NONE He also reiterated his pledge to build 500 units of affordable housing in Kuala Besut if BN performs well in the by-election, in addition to 200 units that are already underway.

Meanwhile, Muhyiddin ( left ) told a press conference after the ceremony that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak has approved RM250 million to deepen the Sungai Besut estuary, which local fishers and speedboat operators had complained as difficult and time-consuming to navigate.

It is often cited as the reason for the long journey time to Pulau Perhentian, about 40 minutes by speedboat.

Muhyiddin added that another RM500,000 would be spent to hire consultants for the project, since ad hoc measures in the past costing RM10 million to RM20 million had failed to solve the long-standing problem.

When asked, Muhyiddin denied these initiatives are election goodies and said these projects have been in the works even before the by-election.

"What that was announced was the decisions (of those plans) and I think they would be well-received by the populace.

"These projects are needed from long ago. It's just that it took time to find the resources (to execute them)," he said.

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