By Amar Shah Mohsen
SHAH ALAM, Aug 7 — Perikatan Nasional’s (PN) manifesto dubbed the New Selangor is full of initiatives in the form of “handouts” but lacks meaningful economic programmes that could help develop the state and empower its people.
This was Menteri Besar Dato’ Seri Amirudin Shari’s first impression of the pledges made by the opposition coalition in its bid to wrest state power.
The state Pakatan Harapan chairman, however, said this does not come as a surprise to him considering his PN counterpart and former menteri besar Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali has been known to be one who favours the distribution of handouts over economic sustainability.
“During Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim’s time in power, he talked about making the economy people-centric. Under Azmin, he spoke about caring for the rakyat, meaning he will give and fulfil what the public wants and needs.
“But when I became menteri besar, I changed the whole paradigm of handouts. I focused on the aspect of sustainability, where any assistance has to be able to resolve issues faced by the people,” he said on the latest episode of the Keluar Sekejap talk show hosted by Khairy Jamaluddin and Shahril Hamdan.
“And we want to talk about PN’s manifesto, there’s no earnestness in terms of economic development and recovery.”
Amirudin pointed out that PN has only pledged an allocation of RM2 million for recovery, as opposed to the Harapan-Barisan Nasional (BN) unity manifesto, which has various initiatives that would be able to further stimulate the state’s economy.
Among other things, he said if given the mandate, the coalition would expand the rail service to the less-developed northern region of Selangor.
“This will stimulate the economy, besides leading to the establishment of new townships,” he said.
He also reiterated his stand that in large parts, PN’s manifesto is a mere copy of existing programmes implemented in Selangor.
Asked if this was an unfair assessment considering many of the current initiatives were themselves iterations of programmes introduced by Azmin during his time as menteri besar, Amirudin said: “I think it’s fair because they are propagandising the term New Selangor.”
“If you are merely going to carry on what has been done, why talk about New Selangor? Those are just propaganda.”
When asked on Azmin’s performance as a menteri besar previously, Amirudin said while the former Keadilan leader did well in certain aspects of his administration, this was overshadowed by his tendency to micromanage.
He said this has resulted in many policy issues being delayed due to his “meticulousness”.
“To be a leader, you need to have trust in your team. Only with trust can we move forward,” he said.
