GUA MUSANG - The unity government has never set aside the development agenda for Muslims and the Malays, said Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.
He said the unity government has always defended Islam as the official religion, the sovereignty of the Malay Rulers, the special rights of the Malays and Bahasa Melayu as the national language.
"I’m not trying to merely defend the government leadership, but the fact remains that there is no compromise when it comes to these four, namely the position of Islam, the Malay Rulers, the Malay race and Malay language... and those are the fundamentals in which the unity government is formed.
"The government has also never ignored the rights of other races and religions.
"Our agenda (unity government) has never side-stepped these four principles in the Constitution. I’m not campaigning here but I am sharing what is truly coming from my heart as I have never shared this with the public,” Zahid said he said at a gathering with the Kelantan Government Retirees Association here today.
He said despite all these, the unity government led by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim continues to be accused of setting aside the Muslim and Malay agenda.
"Anwar is being accused of neglecting Islam, of not being concerned with religious schools, maahad tahfiz but the truth is he (Anwar) had made efforts to provide allocations (for the development of Muslims and the Malays) through Budget 2023 totalling RM1.5 billion,” he said.
Zahid said although he was not the Religious Affairs Minister, his commitment to the development of Muslims was his priority.
The Rural and Regional Development Minister said among the plans currently being implemented was to provide opportunities to ‘huffaz’ from registered maahad tahfiz schools to further their studies at Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) educational centres.
"There are over 3,000 TVETs nationwide and what I had done was to get many of them to pursue TVET... now many of them (huffaz) are engineers and so on, with some even working abroad,” he said, adding that this effort was through collaborations with various parties, including Majlis Amanah Rakyat (Mara).
He said the Rural and Regional Development Ministry had also transformed kindergartens under the Community Development Department (Kemas) into Tahfiz kindergartens to instill spiritual and moral values among pre-schoolers.
"Matters concerning religion and spirituality must be instilled in our children from their pre-school years as early education is most important,” he said. - BERNAMA