DR Mahathir Mohamad today said that he had never endorsed the Forest City project and claims by Najib Razak that he did were attempts to tarnish his reputation.

Instead, the nonagenarian said he opposed the project in Johor, which was approved by Najib’s government.

The Langkawi MP was responding to former prime minister Najib’s accusation on December 26. Najib said that Dr Mahathir had handed out certificates at an event in Forest City, which showed his support for it.

Forest City was one of the projects that could not be axed by the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government as it would have cost billions of ringgit in compensation.

“Since Najib had incurred billions in debt, the government had to seek help from the private sector to loan RM2 billion to pay the interest of the debt,” Dr Mahathir said in a Facebook post today

https://www.facebook.com/100044516073020/posts/489071862586679/?d=n

Dr Mahathir said the PH government could only advise the developer, Country Garden, to build affordable houses that could be bought by Malaysians, which the group had agreed to.

He said then Housing and Local Government Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin had launched the National Community Policy on February 17,2019.

“I was invited to hand out certificates, which included to Forest City for making the changes as per the request of the Malaysian government. This is not an endorsement of the Forest City project approved by the Najib Razak government,” he said. – January 6, 2022.