GIVEN more time, Prime Minister Najib Razak will sell more land, Pakatan Harapan chairman Dr Mahathir Mohamad said.

Dr Mahathir was reacting to news that Bank Negara Malaysia had bought from the federal government 22.58ha of land to build the Global Islamic Finance University and the International Research Academy for Islamic Finance.

“Months were taken to negotiate these transactions. Bank Negara will pay the government of Malaysia RM2 billion for the land,” Dr Mahathir said in his latest blog post on chedet.cc today.

Dr Mahathir, who was prime minister from 1981 to 2003, said selling assets was one way for the government to make money.

He said land in Penang and Port Klang were sold last year to pay the second instalment of money owed to Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC).

State investor 1Malaysia Development Bhd last month paid US$602.7 million (RM2.4 billion) due to IPIC by divesting stake in two companies to buyers linked to Chinese state-owned businesses. It was the final payment for a US$1.2 billion loan from IPIC in July 2015.

“We still have more land. If we sell a few states, we can be really rich. That is one way to achieve Vision 2020,” said the opposition’s prime ministerial candidate..

“More land can be sold and a little of the proceeds distributed as BR1M (Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia) to achieve high-income nation (status). 

“We would then become a developed nation. No need to wait until 2050.”

In the same sarcastic vein, Dr Mahathir said the land sold could turn out like Singapore, which was sold to the British and was today a country with a much higher income per capita than Malaysia.

“We don’t need a big land area. If we sell all our excess land we can see them becoming well developed. We can be very proud of their development.

“Najib is doing a great job. If we give him more time we will see him selling more land, which would get very well developed,” the 92-year-old Bersatu chairman said. – January 2, 2018.