Husam: Debt only RM11m

KOTA BARU: PAS denied that the Kelantan Government was on the verge of bankruptcy with a debt of RM1bil. 

Speaking at a press briefing yesterday, vice-president Datuk Husam Musa said that as of Dec 31 last year, Kelantan owed only RM11.6mil in outstanding arrears to the Federal Government, the second lowest among states in the country after Sarawak, which owed RM3mil. 

Husam was responding to Kelantan Umno chief Datuk Annuar Musa’s remarks recently that PAS did not know how to manage its finances and had chalked up a debt of RM1bil.  

Husam said that when PAS took over Kelantan 18 years ago from Barisan Nasional, it “inherited” a debt of RM760mil that it managed to pay off over eight years. 

Responding to Kelantan Umno comments that it could not trace up to 15%, or 118,000, of the 751,000 registered voters, Husam said it looked like Umno now agreed with what PAS had been saying all along – the existence of phantom and “cloned” voters on the roll. 

He said Annuar was correct in saying that PAS had registered 26,304 new voters compared to Umno’s 9,358. 

“These are all genuine voters. We have been going down to the kampung and approaching people who had never voted before,” he said.