PUTRAJAYA: Despite facing many challenges and differences, the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government remains united and the coalition partners are working together to put Malaysia back on track, defying naysayers who predicted that the coalition will not last.
“Nobody expected us to win (the election), (they said) our coalition is fragile, that it would break up quickly. But that has not happened. We have one single objective, to bring back the Malaysia that we knew before,“ said Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad in a special interview in conjunction with the first anniversary of PH as the ruling party.
Mahathir said the PH Cabinet has performed quite well despite the fact that many of the members are new and have been in the opposition for 60 years.
“Yet, they are able to change and become the government. Of course, sometimes there are difficulties, they still sometimes feel as if they are in the opposition. That is political.
“For me, this is an achievement. The fact that they accepted me as their leader is also an achievement, which people don’t seem to notice,“ he said.
Mahathir said most of the people in the country still feel happy with the change of government, even after one year since the coalition swept into power.
“At that time, we didn’t even think we would be in the government. And then when we were, we found that the problems created by the previous government are much more than what we thought because we were not given information. I think we are doing quite well, considering the circumstances,“ he explained.
He said the main achievement, which is also the first objective achieved by the government, was to avoid and eradicate corruption.
“Today, people don’t complain so much about corruption or any difficulty doing anything because there is no demand to be paid or extra payment. People are getting approvals much more quickly,“ he said.
Of course, there are still complaints and criticism, but Mahathir emphasised that the criticism came from people who created all the problems.
“We are trying to resolve the problems created by them. They borrowed money by the billions, they punished people for not supporting them, shifted them around, took away their jobs. We don’t do such things.
“We have removed quite a number of people who are corrupt. We had evidence about them and we took action against them,“ said Mahathir.
He said PH also upholds the rules and laws of the country.
“They had no rule of law before. We obey and accept the separation of power between the judiciary and the executive,“ he said.
Mahathir said PH also managed to reduce the cost for the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) project by a whopping RM21.5 billion.
He said this has not been achieved by anybody else, where people who got caught in a similar contract have not been able to revise the agreement.
“It took us almost one year to renegotiate the ECRL. The contract terms were very, very bad. It (the contract) was given to a company from China just because we borrowed money from China, and we borrowed more than we should have.
“On top of it, all payments and profits are made in China, not Malaysia. We cannot tax even. We go back to proper practices, with due diligence, before we enter into any contract,“ explained Mahathir.
He also refuted critics who said the PH government repackaged the Barisan Nasional (BN) initiatives.
“There is a difference. Any government will have to do certain things. The fact is the previous government tried to do what the previous government did, and they failed. We have to do the same thing without the corruption,“ he said.
He said PH is doing all the necessary initiatives and carrying out the responsibilities as a government without corruption and cronyism.
“We do it through the proper way, not through corruption, giving contracts to cronies or asking the contract price to be increased in order to take money. Those are the things that they do,“ he said.
When asked what initiatives he was unable to carry out, Mahathir said: “We promised to abolish the (highway) tolls. But we now realise that we didn’t understand the cost.
“If the government wants to abolish tolls, the government has to buy all the highways and that costs a lot of money.
“The question now is either we use the money for abolishing tolls or do we use the amount, if we have, for other much more important purposes,“ he said.
Mahathir also explained that the cost to maintain the highways will also run into billions (of ringgit) and amplify the country’s financial problem.
“At this moment, we find it very difficult to implement a promise that was made without the full knowledge of the cost and damage that can be done,“ he said.
As for the MRT 3 project, which has also been put on ice, Mahathir said it is too costly at the moment.
“We have to cut down construction, although we know it is useful. Everything depends on the circumstances.
“We have made a lot of promises that we cannot deliver overnight. There are obstacles in the way, not easy to resolve. It will take time, but we will try to deliver as much as possible,“ he concluded. — Bernama
