KUALA LUMPUR, May 19 — Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang rubbished talk today that PAS puts its political needs above public welfare, claiming that in Kelantan, voters are more well-off that their leaders in government.
The Marang MP, who was responding to questions posed to him at a forum here, said that Kelantan is a good example of PAS’s good governance.
“When we (PAS) led the Kelantan government for over 20 years, we were and still are financially constrained but the people are well and are in good position.
“This is the proper Islamic concept where the leader is the one who suffers, but his people are happy... not the other way around where leaders live happily while their people are burdened,” Hadi said, in a veiled reference to Putrajaya.
“This is practical, but the media don’t play this up… not that they don’t want to write about it but they are controlled,” he said.
Hadi also spoke about the flood disaster that hit east coast states last year, in which Kelantan was the worst-hit, and said that the PAS-led government had been quick to offer aid to the public.
“The state government did help during the flood… we took over, built houses for the victims and completed it despite our limited resources, while the federal government which had more money was still fighting over contractors,” he claimed.
Earlier this year, the National Security Council (NSC) confirmed the massive flood that hit Kelantan was the worst in the history of the state.
The inundation that swept Kelantan among other states, were also considered the worst in recent decades, displacing over 200,000 Malaysians nationwide from their homes.
