Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has fired back at Investment, Trade and Industry Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz after the latter mocked the former prime minister over an inaccurate news report.
A tongue-in-cheek video in Malay posted on Tengku Zafrul’s social media urged Dr Mahathir to share details of the investor looking to put money into Langkawi for his ministry to follow up on.
In a Facebook post, Dr Mahathir said Tengku Zafrul seemed “a bit over-excited” with the Sinar Harian report, which detailed the wrong figure over his meeting with an investor.
“The figure reported should have been RM500 million (not billion), and it was corrected by the publisher of the newspaper without my request,” he said.
He added that Tengku Zafrul had without delay uploaded a video on his social media presumably before the newspaper had time to correct it.
“If his over-excited nature towards the inaccurate report is also present in him when looking for and getting investors to Malaysia, I am confident that the country’s dark and gloomy economic situation can be overcome,” he said.
In addition, he also requested Zafrul for equal transparency of the investments that entered and were finalised in Malaysia since he became a minister.
Dr Mahathir also called out Zafrul’s appointment under the present administration as suspicious.
“Despite losing the 15th general election on an Umno ticket, Datuk Seri Anwar, who had previously criticised Zafrul, appointed him as a minister again.
“If you follow Datuk Seri Anwar, Zafrul is not worthy to be a minister. But he remains a minister. Maybe there is something special that we can’t see yet,” he added.
Meanwhile, Malek Redzuan, who is a special officer to Dr Mahathir, said Tengku Zafrul should apologise for what he said and retract his statement criticising Dr Mahathir regarding the amount of investment in Langkawi.
“Greetings, Tengku (Zafrul). Sinar Harian has corrected it to RM500 million, not billion. When will (you) retract your statement and apologise?” Malek said in the post.
Earlier report:
Jul 11, Tengku Zafrul: Govt ready to roll out red carpet for Mahathir’s RM500b Langkawi investor