BN to focus on track record
Campaign will emphasise previous state govt’s work, says Mohamad
SEREMBAN: It’s nomination day for the Rantau by-election today, kicking off a campaign in which Barisan Nasional candidate Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan would focus on the previous state administration’s move to introduce lower land premiums to boost development.
Mohamad, who was mentri besar from 2004 till 2018, said he had done so through the Mentri Besar Incorporated (MBI) to attract investments without taxing the people with high quit rent and assessment charges.
“We had on a few occasions reduced or waived premiums as we wanted investors to come to Negri Sembilan.
“In fact, some 80% of our income was derived from the development and not from taxes. We never taxed the people,” he told reporters in Rantau yesterday.
Referring to Pakatan Harapan’s assertion that they would expose his past “wrongdoings”, Mohamad believes that they were referring to matters related to the low land premiums.
Explaining about the premiums, Mohamad said his administration, among others, had engaged a developer to build 535 bungalows for Felda Sendayan settlers after the project was abandoned for 12 years.
“MBI raised RM250mil from the Pensions Trust Fund and had to pay another RM60mil in interest for the five-year loan for the project.
“The developer eventually paid for the entire project and in return, we waived their premium to convert the status of their own land,” he said, adding that the developer also went on to build a mosque, three surau and three schools in its township.
Citing another example, Mohamad said his administration had also lowered the land premium for a five-star hotel which wanted to build a property in Port Dickson.
“Today, the hotel is thriving and bringing in lots of foreign exchange into the state.
“My administration was a business-friendly one and that was why Negri Sembilan was one of the country’s top states in terms of attracting investments then,” he said, adding that he as mentri besar never even took a delegation abroad to promote the state.
“We opened a 5,000-acre development in Sendayan where thousands of houses have been built, including the Sendayan air force base and Sendayan Tech Valley which had attracted huge foreign corporations and billions of ringgit in investments,” he said.
Mohamad said he succeeded in getting KTM Bhd to build a station in Sungai Gadut and had received the nod from the federal government to revive the Seremban-Port Dickson rail route which would have run through Kuala Sawah.
Both Sungai Gadut and Kuala Sawah are located in the Rantau state constituency.
Asked about remarks by state Pakatan chief and Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Aminuddin Harun that the ruling party would be the underdog in the by-election, Mohamad said this did not make sense.
“I am now an ordinary person. But they are with the federal or state government and they have the entire machinery at their disposal,” he said.
“Their leaders, including ministers and deputy ministers, are already coming here as they want to break Barisan’s winning momentum.”