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Rahman Dahlan: Opposition should join gov't to develop country

The opposition should join the government to shoulder the duties and responsibilities to develop the country, said Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Abdul Rahman Dahlan.

He said the opposition should be aware of its role and to stop any acts that could adversely affect the development of the country, such as making false accusation on the country's economy that could affect foreign investment opportunities here.

"In contrast to the opposition of other countries, our opposition here, especially DAP whenever they went abroad, they didn't show any patriotism, or tried put aside their political interests for the good of the country, and it is one stark difference between our opposition and (opposition) from other countries, " he said to a supplementary question from Senator Mohd Suhaimi Abdullah during question time at the Dewan Negara today.

Mohd Suhaimi wanted to know whether large investment from other countries, especially from Saudi Arabia in a project in Pengerang, Johor, gave the perception that the country had been "mortgaged" to outsiders.

Elaborating, Abdul Rahman said the economic sabotage attempts by the opposition was not only confined to investment from Saudi Arabia, as the opposition was alleged to have done so with a Taiwanese company which later cancelled their planned investment in Pengerang.

"During Saudi Arabia's Aramco's plans to invest here, there were negative voices from the opposition. It was alright for them to question the government policy, but not to the extent of harming the economy. Those adversely affected are Malaysians because such investments will bring in benefits to the locals especially job opportunities," he said.

Earlier, Abdul Rahman was replying to the original question from Senator Abdul Shukor Mohd Sultan who wanted the government to state all the benefits obtained from the visit from King Salman Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia recently.

Abdul Rahman said the visit was very important, particularly in terms of economic relations and also to forge closer diplomatic relations between the two countries and the highlight of the visit was the share purchase agreement between Petronas and Saudi Arabia's Aramco.

The agreement signed was for Aramco to take up a 50 percent stake in the refinery and cracker assets at the Petronas' Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development (Rapid) project in Pengerang, Johor, with an investment value of RM31 billion.

- Bernama

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