PETALING JAYA: The issue surrounding the wall erected around the Malaysia-China Kuantan Industrial Park (MCKIP) is nothing but slander, said Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
"Thank God, one more slander towards the Barisan Nasional government before the 14th general election has been corrected. What was good was accused as wicked," Najib said in a Facebook post on Monday.
The former premier said he felt "vindicated" after Kuantan MP Fuziah Salleh said the industrial park's infamous wall only surrounds the Alliance Steel (M) Sdn Bhd complex and not the entire MCKIP as previously alleged.
After returning from his trip to China, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir called for the solid wall – dubbed "the Great Wall of China in Kuantan" by some – surrounding the MCKIP to be dismantled.
In an interview with Malaysiakini, Dr Mahathir said that he was seeking to reassert Malaysian "authority" over the area, which had been described by some as a "closed city".
"An industrial park is not a foreign country. It should be under the laws of Malaysia. Cutting out entry to local officials is not the right thing to do," he was reported as saying.
Fuziah, who is also Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, said she would inform the Prime Minister of the error.
Najib also pointed out that the Qinzhou Road was named to commemorate MCKIP's relationship with the Qinzhou China-Malaysia Industrial Park (QCMIP) in China.
According to Najib, there were accusations against him of "selling out the country" because of the name. He labelled this "another "propaganda" by Pakatan Harapan.
Najib also said Malaysia owned the same percentage of shares in QCMIP as China in MCKIP, but the former is three times bigger and produced over RM6bil's worth of goods in 2017 alone.
"If we are competent in mathematics and are not always mistaken about decimal points, we would understand that owning 50 per cent of an industrial park for a market of 1.4 billion people is better than owning 100 per cent for only 30 million people," he said.
