Grand plan for Kelantan

Saturday January 5, 2008


KUALA KRAI: The Federal Government has promised to make Kelantan an Islamic civilisation centre of distinction if the Barisan Nasional (BN) is returned to power in the state in the next general election.

Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said yesterday that the first step towards empowering Islam was to build mosques because mosques were centres for developing Islam.

He said the construction of mosques in Kelantan would continue to be given priority even if the coalition lost in the general election but if it won, the project to empower mosques would gain momentum.

“We hope to win because it would speed up the process of building mosques and the Islamic civilisation centre in Kelantan,” he said at the groundbreaking ceremony for a new mosque in AnNur, Guchil.

He said that unlike the BN, PAS had ruled in Kelantan for 18 years and yet had not built a single mosque.

“There was an attempt to build a mosque in Rantau Panjang during the silver jubilee celebration last year but until now, the project has yet to be completed. Where’s the Islam propagated by PAS if it can’t even build one mosque?” he said.

Najib was specially touched by the construction of the new AnNur mosque because 40 years ago, the original mosque was built with an allocation approved by his father Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, who was then the deputy prime minister.

“I’m touched that 40 years after my father came to open the mosque, which at that time cost RM35,000, what I (Federal Government) approved now is RM2.1mil. I’m also the Deputy Prime Minister now,” he said.

Later in Machang, Najib said the Opposition's claim that they would cut oil prices if they were to administer the country was irrational because world prices for the commodity had risen to US$100 (RM328) per barrel.

“This kind of talk is only to deceive the people whereas they know they can't do it (reduce the oil price),” he said when launching the BN Youth Election Machinery at the Sekolah Menengah Hamzah.