GE14 | Najib Abdul Razak wants the people of Sabah to give their mandate to BN in the 14th general election on May 9 because the huge agenda of developing Sabah had yet to be completed.

The caretaker prime minister said Sabah deserved to be developed into one of the more advanced states due to its great potential and it was necessary to have a BN leadership at the federal level, and a BN leadership at the state level led by Musa Aman and his colleagues who have proven the transformation of the state.

“As the prime minister, God willing, with the mandate given on May 9, I will enhance the efforts to develop Sabah and we will march forward with change after change,” he said.

Najib was addressing about 10,000 people at a meet-the-people session organised for the Kalabakan and Tawau parliamentary constituencies at the Tawau municipal field today.

Also present at the event were Musa and the BN electoral candidates for Kalabakan and Tawau, Abdul Ghapur Salleh and Mary Yap Kain Ching, respectively.

Najib also said that in Tawau alone many projects had been approved, including the RM300 million upgrade of the Tawau Hospital which was being implemented.

"Another project is to upgrade the new northern road in Tawau, from two lanes to four (both directions) along a 5.5km stretch, which will be implemented before the general election.

"And Abdul Ghapur Salleh had also whispered to me for an allocation to repair houses for residents in the Kalabakan parliamentary constituency but I said we will wait until after May 9. If we win 4-0 in Kalabakan I would approve additional allocations, also for the Tawau parliamentary constituency," he said.

Najib wanted the BN to win in all the state and parliamentary seats in Kalabakan and Tawau with an increased majority.

"The Sabah soil is blue with BN because our agenda is clearly to forge ahead. There is much we want to do if the mandate is given to BN, our ambition and dream will be achieved," he said, adding that Sabah was close to his heart and his agenda was to complete the toll-free Pan Borneo Highway and to bring in various projects, including water and electricity supply, in the rural areas, as well as housing.

According to him, the BN's struggle must be continued as the country's development agenda has been well-organised.

"We (BN) have already administered our country until 2017; the nation's revenue has increased, the country's growth rate reached 5.9 percent level, among the highest in the world.

"Our national reserves are now up to US$110 billion, which is different compared to 1999 when he (Dr Mahathir Mohamad) was the prime minister and the reserves were only US$20 billion," he said.

Najib said today's national debt was 50.8 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) while that during the time of Mahathir had reached 103 percent.

"Who is more wasteful, who is more responsible? That is why today he is looking in vain for faults and making up stories, that purportedly RM42 billion belonging to 1MDB is missing. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) deputy chairperson at that time, (Dr) Tan Seng Giaw, concluded after reviewing the Auditor-General's Report that the prime minister had not done wrong in the matter of 1MDB," he said.

Najib said the government only put in RM1 million of the people's money in 1MDB and the rest were loans, contrary to the forex losses amounting to RM31 billion.

"That's real money, it was cash in Bank Negara, not loans. Who's worse? He (Mahathir) says he wants to save Malaysia. Save Malaysia from whom?"

- Bernama