KUALA LUMPUR: Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal has hit back at quarters claiming that Parti Warisan had failed when it led the Sabah government several years ago.
Shafie, who is party president, said Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor should not blame the past administration for the state's problems, including water and electricity shortages.
"It looks like Hajiji wants to cover up his failures in Sabah by comparing what he's done to what Warisan did (when we were the government).
"Perhaps he forgot that at this moment, many Sabahans are facing water shortages... some have not had water for the past three days, some for a week or several weeks.
"Don't point the finger at us. You are the government of the day," he said in a press conference in Parliament today.
Shafie, who is Semporna member of parliament, said when Warisan was in power between May 2018 and September 2020, they had succeeded in introducing many policies and initiatives, despite facing a global pandemic and over a year of lockdowns.
Among them included an increase in scholarships for Sabahans, granting Native Land Titles, and introducing the sales tax for petroleum products.
"Never in Sabah's history has a sales tax been imposed on Petronas, not during Usno, Berjaya, or PBS's time.
"But under Warisan Plus, we imposed this five per cent tax since April 2020, and today, the Sabah government has collected almost RM2 billion from this.
"So don't tell us that we failed. We were only the government for about two years," he added.
On Saturday, Hajiji had lambasted Shafie for allegedly spreading false political narratives to undermine the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah-Pakatan Harapan Plus govermment, which is currently leading the state.
He had described Shafie's actions as sowing seeds of discord without acknowledging the accomplishments of the GRS-PH plus government, and said Warisan would have remained as government if they did not fail.