PUTRAJAYA, April 25 — Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Datuk Mohamaddin Ketapi said, for him, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is the "best prime minister ever”.

In an interview with Malay Mail, the Silam MP applauded the efforts of the seventh prime minister in leading the current government.

"If you ask me, I think the best ever prime minister is Tun Dr Mahathir.

"I am really taken by the way Tun is working for Malaysia,” he said.

Mohamaddin praised the Pakatan Harapan (PH) chairman when asked which of his fellow ministers he feels is performing the best.

"If I tell you which one, then the rest will get upset, wouldn’t it be that way?” he responded before going on to speak about Dr Mahathir. 

Mohamaddin was sworn in as a federal minister on July 2 last year, and was among the second line-up of 13 ministers, which completed the 26 ministers currently in the Cabinet.

Earlier, in a joint interview arranged to commemorate Pakatan Harapan’s first anniversary in power, Mohamaddin said he was satisfied with his ministry’s achievements, despite the financial constraints faced by the ruling government.

"When the ministry needs to pay off a lot of debt, then we have to spend wisely and cut our budget.

"It is not the case where I do not want to fulfil more [for the ministry] or that we can’t do more, but because we need to trim the budget, our scope becomes smaller,” he said.

Mohamaddin said one of the achievements of his ministry since he took over was the classification of 255 items as National Heritage, which included 149 works by the late Tan Sri P. Ramlee.

He added that another achievement that made him proud was Kuala Lumpur being named World Book Capital for the Year 2020 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco).

Unesco said Malaysia’s capital was selected because of the city’s strong focus on inclusive education; its ongoing development of a knowledge-based society; and its population’s easy access to reading materials.