Najib Tun Razak today told the young people via his Facebook friends to give their full support and trust in him as the nation's prime minister to deliver a better future for Sarawak.     

Expressing his delight to meet 250 online friends from all over Sarawak for the first time, Najib said young people should have idealism and expectation towards the government in terms of a fair and transparent governance.     

najib facebook account"The government may not be perfect. But we try our best, as far as possible, to achieve a better governance and government so that the people are confident that it is here to protect the interest of every single citizen of the country," he said at the ‘Let's Meet and Communicate’ (Mari Berjumpa Berhubung) session with his local Facebook friends, who later joined him for breakfast at the face-to-face meeting.      

Najib, who currently had upwards of 590,000 fans on Facebook and over 90,000 on Twitter, said it became increasingly important for him and other leaders in his administration to make their interaction meaningful with each Malaysian.      

Having held two similar sessions at his official residence, Seri Perdana, in Putrajaya, he said leaders must go to find users of internet and other social networking sites, where the 'rakyat' or people could be found in growing numbers to engage them in dialogues.      

"If you cannot come to me, I will go to you. I will try and meet with as many of my online friends as I travel across Malaysia," he said, adding that each and every one of his invited online friends supported and practised the 1Malaysia principle.     

‘It’s really me’

He described today's gathering as one of the ways to engage with the people in new and innovative ways since taking up the government's leadership.     

Najib with his facebook gathering in Kuching, showing finger"I have also been interacting regularly on Twitter, so if you have been wondering, yes, it is really me replying to your tweets. I tweet in the morning before work, in between appointments and after work before I go to sleep," said the prime minister.      

With respect to Sarawak, he said, the federal government was working closely with the state government to bring about more development plans, especially after the impending state election which would be held any time soon.      

While the government faced many challenges in bringing Sarawak on par with the peninsula, he said the state achieved the highest rate of development in the last two years alone.      

"Sarawak is not a small state. I thought Pahang is a big state but to the local folks here 60km is a short distance, unlike in Perlis where the same distance would already be outside the state," he said.    

He also said compared to countries such as Egypt and Libya, where democratic rights was a pivotal issue, Malaysia was different because it had a proven democratic system that was reflected through the ballot box.

ETP 'not a nightmare'

Najib meanwhile expressed  confidence that Malaysia will achieve its target of six percent economic growth this year.    

"We will get six per cent (of economic growth) (and we are) pushing as far as possible. Every week, the economic council meets (to discuss issues) besides creating more investment and job opportunities," he said.

Najib said the government was also creating more high and middle level job opportunities to ensure that the government's objective of becoming a high income nation would be achieved by 2020.     

He also said the government's Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) which aimed to triple Malaysia's Gross National Income (GNI) from RM660 billion in 2009, to close to RM1.7 trillion in 2020, "is not a nightmare".

- Bernama

 

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