“This is to discuss and debate his six-minute debacle with US President Donald Trump,” DAP Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua said.
“Najib must justify to the 30 million Malaysians why he behaved like the leader of a vassal state to the US ‘imperialists’ within days after we celebrated 60 years of independence.”
Pua was speaking at a joint press conference with PKR MP Sim Tze Tzin, PPBM’s Rais Hussin, and Amanah’s Dzulkefly Ahmad at the PPBM headquarters here today.
He also questioned how Malaysia Airlines, which has been bleeding over the last few years, was going to fulfil Najib’s promise of US$10 billion worth of new aircraft purchases.
“How can the deeply loss-making Malaysia Airlines (MAS) afford a potential US$10 billion acquisition of aircraft from Boeing?”
He added that the financial problems the national carrier was facing were so severe that it had needed a RM6 billion bailout from Khazanah Nasional just three years ago.
Adding on to Pua’s statement, Rais questioned if MAS really needed the aircraft at this point in time.
This was especially so as it was forced to lay off thousands of employees, and even had to sell off a number of its aircraft just to cut costs and become profitable again, said Rais.
“How is MAS going to raise funds to buy these aircraft? By taking on another bond, another sukuk issued by the government?”
Dzulkefly said the purchase of Boeing planes had not been stated in MAS’ recovery plan, and had never been spoken of until Najib’s announcement.
“Is this a step for Najib to save himself?”
According to foreign reports, Najib, flanked by top advisers in the Cabinet Room in the White House on Tuesday, told Trump that MAS would buy 25 Boeing 737 jets and eight 787 Dreamliners, and would probably add another 25 737s in the near future — a deal he said that would be worth more than US$10 billion (RM42 billion) within five years.
The plane purchase was on top of other commitments the prime minister pledged during his three-day visit, including a greater investment from Khazanah, which had already invested about US$400 million in high-technology companies in the US.
Najib also said the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) planned to invest between US$3 billion and US$4 billion on US infrastructure development, in addition to the US$7 billion the fund had already invested there.
Pua expressed outrage, saying Najib was “pawning our assets to strengthen the US economy for his personal agenda, when the precious funds could be used to rescue our own floundering economy”.
Trump thanks Najib as Malaysia looks to buy US$10 billion jets