TUMPAT: The Barisan Nasional (BN) will not keep quiet on the issue of petroleum royalty and will continue to explain to the people especially in the Pengkalan Kubor by-election as PAS has been found to be continuing to harp on the issue in its campaign, said Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
He said even though the petroleum royalty case was still with the court, PAS and a non-governmental organisation known as 'R' had from the start played up the issue to tarnish the federal government.
"The people of Kelantan want the real explanation while the statements of PAS are incorrect," he told reporters after attending an "Evening with the Deputy Prime Minister" event here today.
The Deputy Prime Minister said the people and voters of Pengkalan Kubor must get the precise explanation and that the BN does not want it to be an issue in the by-election.
"PAS will continue to use petroleum royalty as an issue even though we (BN) do not mention it," he said.
Muhyiddin said the allegation by PAS that the government and Petronas purportedly owed RM12 billion in oil royalty to Kelantan was to defame the federal government and he challenged them to provide specific evidence to back their claim.
"From the federal government's viewpoint, calculations show Kelantan is out of the three nautical miles range where oil is extacted and therefore is not entitled to any royalty. They should not be receiving anything but based on our consideration, we have allocated 'goodwill funds' to the Kelantan Federal Development Department and the Kelantan Islam and Malay Customs Council (Maik),"he said.
The distribution of the goodwill fundd to JPP and Maik on a 50-50 basis is schedued to start next year and before this, the goodwill money was only channelled to the JPP.
"We cannot keep quiet, we have to be firm on the issue so that the residents especially the voters in Pengkalan Kubor arrive at a wise decision," he said.
He said PAS could not fault BN in providing information to the people on the issue as it was the party through 'R' that was harping on the issue to win over voters.
The Deputy Prime Minister said the BN campaign machinery would be going all out to explain to the voters on the issue.
Asked on his evaluation of BN's chances in the by-election which entered its seventh day of campaigning today, Muhyiddin said there was a good chance of winning even though the campaign would continue until Sept 24.
He gave five factors for BN's confidence, namely BN chose a good candidate, its prudent campaign, effective machinery, explanation on issues, acceptance of candidate by the Umno division an its Wanita, Youth and Puteri wings.
"For me, among the three candidates (in the contest) ours is the best based on the background, qualifications, and experience.
"The campaign we are conducting is and we do not made personal attacks unlike PAS which keeps hitting out at the BN candidate even till today," he said.
He said the acceptance of voters for the BN candidate especially in PAS strongholds now was obvious and this has facilitated campaigning.
However, he did not want the BN machinery to be overconfident as there was still much work to be done in the remaining five days of campaign.
The by-election is a three-cornerned fight between Mat Razi Mat Ail of BN, Wan Rosdi Wan Ibrahim of PAS and independent candidate Izat Bukhari Ismail Bukhari.