Warisan excuse proves it failed to manage Sabah economy, Najib says

(FMT) – Former prime minister Najib Razak said Warisan never denied Sabah’s economy was sluggish under them after the party said 26 months was too short a time to judge the state government’s performance.

Earlier this evening, Warisan deputy president Darell Leiking had dismissed Najib’s criticism of the party’s ability to develop Sabah.

Leiking said Najib “should know better than just to use one-year GDP (gross domestic product) growth to measure the performance of a government”.

He said the Warisan-led government was only in power for 26 months and it was too short a period to make any judgment.

But Najib pointed out that Warisan never denied that Sabah’s economy was sluggish under them.

“They only said that 26 months was too short a period to conclude that Warisan failed to manage the economy,” he said in a Facebook post.

He again compared Sabah’s economic performance before and after the last general election.

During the eight years before GE14, he said, Sabah recorded an economic growth that far surpassed the nation’s.

In 2017, the state recorded a growth of 8.2%, compared to the nation’s 5.9%, and a year before that, it recorded a 4.7% growth rate, compared to Malaysia’s 4.2%.

However, in 2018, after Warisan took over the state government, the economic growth dropped to 1.5% and was the lowest in the nation.

“The previous Pakatan Harapan government and the Warisan administration never launched or implemented a strategic plan for Sabah,” Najib said.