The interminable political quagmire in Perak has caused local and foreign investors to put a brake on their contributions, resulting in a halt to economic activities, claims ousted menteri besar Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin (below).

NONESpeaking at his home in Ipoh recently, he said this was mainly due to the uncertainty over who rightful menteri besar was.

“The investors are a bit sceptical as far as the new government is concerned because the position of menteri besar has not been finalised by the court yet,” said the PAS leader.

He noted that investors were wary of the state because of its constitutional crisis.

Because of this, he argued, Barisan Nasional’s menteri besar Zambry Abdul Kadir‘s administration “could not outdo” Pakatan Rakyat’s 10 and a half months’s tenure in terms of foreign direct investment and economic activities.

The recent 2008 auditor-general report affirmed that Perak, under the Pakatan government had reached its target of RM3.1 billion in investment value in various portfolios and industries, said Nizar.

“Now that Zambry has taken over for the past 11 months, I would think he would be lucky if he could get RM400 million worth of foreign direct investment,” he said.

In this third and final part of the interview, the Bukit Gantang parliamentarian also talked about other Pakatan policies “emulated” by Barisan Nasional.

Excerpts of the interview follow. The content has been edited for language and brevity.

Malaysiakini: How do you see Barisan’s policies compared to yours?

Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin: I would say that most of Barisan policies are ‘copycat’ (sic) of ours and they emulated what we did. For instance, before that there were no financial aids for students unless they applied for loans.

But when we took office, for the first time, regardless of the student’s background, all Perakians whose parents earn less than RM1500 per month, would automatically get RM1000 (to pursue their studies).

But when they (Barisan) took office, they extended the policy to the diploma level and they increased it from RM1000 to RM1500. So we were happy because they emulated what we did and the Perakians gained something out of it.

I allocated a large piece of land to private institutions of the Chinese community as well as the Muslim community, which were Sekolah Agama Rakyat and Chinese private schools respectively. At that time, there were no Tamil private schools.

zambry abdul kadir interview 200409 02They then copied that and invested in Tamil institutions. Zambry (right) allocated financial aid to nine Chinese private institutions where he allocated RM400,000 per school

Then we issued perpetual land titles to 12,000 Malay communities in Kampung Tersusun and 47,000 Chinese communities in Kampung Baru.

(Barisan then) used the issue to put the blame on me and said I was a stooge for the Chinese (claiming that) I was selling Perak to the Chinese.

But now they are giving 99 years for each of the land titles they issued?

But that is nothing compared to us because we issued perpetual land titles …but again for the last 12 to 50 years, they never had the guts to even give 99 years for those who have been staying 70 years in Kampung Baru and 40 years in Kampung Tersusun.

But when we started giving land titles, they started giving the 99-year land titles, which is at least something rather than nothing.

But I must congratulate Pakatan for our achievement because according to the auditor-general report, we have increased our revenue collection (from land matters) state for Perak.

For the first time we increased it to RM100.4 million compared to the highest ever collected by Barisan. The most Barisan collected for the last 51 years was RM533 million.

We (Pakatan) collected revenue of RM633 million and that was recorded in the auditor-general’s report.

During Umno’s time in 51 years, the revenue collection for forestry products and logging was RM13million. Pakatan managed to collect RM40 million.

If you look at Barisan’s 2010 Budget, the same logging activity in different areas (produced) only RM17 million. But how did we manage to get the RM40 million?

When I took office in February 2008, Umno had used up a great volume of the quota for logging for that year. So by late December, January and early February (2008) they had actually used most part of the quota allocated for 2008.

So we were left with the remainder and a third of the remainder was tendered openly. But even with only one-third, it produced an income of RM40 million.

But why in the Barisan budget, although having a fresh quota for (logging), they could only forecast RM17 million?


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