Dr M slams 'over excited' Tengku Zafrul over misquoted report

SHAH ALAM - Forrmer prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has hit out at Investment, Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Aziz for making a video about a misquoted report that he had met investors willing to invest up to RM500 billion in Langkawi.

Mahathir said that the news report had been corrected to say that he had actually met investors willing to invest RM500 million, not RM500 billion.

"Tengku Zafrul seems a little over-excited by the inaccurate report

"But even before the publisher corrected the RM500 billion to RM500 million, Tengku Zafrul wasted no time and made a video explaining how RM309 billion is the highest amount of investment Malaysia has received in a year," Mahathir said in a Twitter post.

Tengku Zafrul had been reported saying that his ministry would roll out the red carpet from "airport to hotel" to welcome Dr Mahathir's RM500 billion investor, citing the local news report before it was amended.

Mahathir said that he had met a few people who had been interested in investing RM500 million in Langkawi, but they had ended up heading to Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines instead because no minister was willing to meet them.

In a related matter, Dr Mahathir also requested Tengku Zafrul to detail out the investments that have been entered into and finalised in Malaysia since he became a minister under the current administration.

Dr Mahathir also said that he was surprised to see Tengku Zafrul being appointed as minister under the leadership of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who had previously criticised him for taking care of banks instead of the people.