Datuk Seri Dr Wee Jeck Seng (centre seated) having a light moment with his constituents in Tanjung Piai in Johor Baru.
TANJUNG PIAI: Candidates vying for the Tanjung Piai seat in the 15th General Election (GE15) should focus on the betterment of the people instead of seeking political mileage, says Datuk Seri Dr Wee Jeck Seng.
The Barisan Nasional candidate for the seat hit out at his opponent from Muda for making baseless accusations that the coalition handed out "election goodies".
"During the Tanjung Piai by-election in 2019, the then Pakatan Harapan government had made all kinds of promises to appease the people.
"Then youth and sports minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman, who is now Muda president, even promised to upgrade the sports and recreational facilities in Tanjung Piai with a RM4mil allocation.
"A further RM3mil was also promised by Pakatan for the upgrade of the Jeram Batu, Sungai Boh and Pengkalan Parit Penghulu fishermen's jetties.
"These announcements were all made after the by-election had been called following the passing of then MP Dr Md Farid Md Rafik," he said Monday (Nov 7).
He pointed out that instead of attacking the government at the time, he focused on meeting people on the ground and looking into ways to further improve their lives.
"I did not attack them or say that these are all election goodies. As for me, these would also benefit the people in my kampung," he said.
He also advised Muda candidate Lim Wei Jiet to verify his facts before making attacks.
"Mentri Besar Datuk Onn Hafiz Ghazi's visit to the constituency was a prearranged working visit on Oct 22 to meet and get to know the people here.
"At the same time, he told the people about the allocations for the development of the constituency, which had been approved earlier.
"In fact, at that time, no one knew who would be contesting in Tanjung Piai under Barisan. Even I did not know if I would be the candidate as the announcement had yet to be made," he said, adding that he and two state assemblymen in the area were invited to the event as they were the people's representatives there.
He also noted that as the Mentri Besar was the administrative head of the current state government, he had the right to help the people of Johor.
"The ongoing GE15 does not involve the Johor government as we already had our state election in March.
"Only Parliament has been dissolved, not the state government. It does not make sense for these to be called 'election goodies', as they were approved even before the election was called," he said.
Wee added that the Muda candidate had never set foot in the constituency before and was now highlighting many "issues" including its hospital.
"We do not mind being criticised but it should be factual.
"The Pakatan government could have pushed for Hospital Pontian to be upgraded but chose to ignore the matter.
"When we took over, we continued to pursue this and things are finally moving. It will take time as this involves a huge budget and a lot of planning but we are actually doing something about it," he said.
Earlier, in a press conference, Lim claimed that Onn Hafiz was giving out "election goodies" when he announced an allocation of RM4mil for a food court and RM600,000 for the upgrade of six villages.
He also said that among his focus points was to upgrade Hospital Pontian, which is old and in a bad state.
