KUALA BESUT, July 15 — PAS today accused the Barisan Nasional government of planning to build a low-cost housing project on land allegedly grabbed from the locals here after it had won the state in Election 2004.

This comes as Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin launched a four-storey low-cost housing project in Kampung Lay Out, Tok Saboh here on Saturday, which Terengganu Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Ahmad Said had called a sign of “generosity” from the ruling government.

“The land where there was a ground-breaking ceremony recently, it was the site of the plots awarded by the previous government for the people to build their homes there,” Besut PAS chief Wan Azhar Wan Ahmad (picture) said, referring to the land in Kampung Lay Out.

He accused the BN government of dispossessing the land from the families who were awarded land there, and destroying five houses with no compensation.

Fellow PAS leader Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad explained that the families were given temporary occupation licences (TOL), which in Terengganu means they would be given land grants if the houses built on the plots could be finished in three years.

Wan Azhar said only one of the houses was finished, but they were all demolished anyway before their TOL period ended.

He also accused the BN state government of doing so to delete all trace of goodwill that had been done by PAS during its one-term rule of the state between 1999 and 2004.

On Saturday, 72 families were awarded homes in the RM10 million low-cost housing project after their original houses were destroyed by high sea waves.

It is not known whether any of the families involved in the alleged land grab were also offered houses in the project.

During the project’s ground-breaking ceremony, Terengganu Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Ahmad Said had reprimanded Terengganu residents for being “stingy” with their support for Barisan Nasional (BN), blaming them for leaving his administration at risk of what could be Malaysia’s first-ever hung assembly.

“The government has never tricked the people ... But the people are actually too ‘kedekut’ (stingy) to give their votes to BN,” Ahmad said.

“Sometimes the Terengganu folks, I don’t know, when you promise them the moon, the stars, the heavens, they forget the deeds of BN.”