He continued to defend the exhibition after an opposition politician had questioned him about the project.
The minister in the Prime Minister’s Department pointed out that the sum was 0.08% of the RM46 billion allocation managed by the Economic Planning Unit.
“The sum is reasonable in view of the fact that it was held for a month at Dataran Merdeka, which is a strategic location,” he said at the Dewan Negara today.
Earlier today, Rafizi had estimated that the expo cost RM34 million.
Rahman said the Expo Negaraku 2017 project was bigger than Expo Milano 2015, Italy, which the government had participated in for six months to promote Malaysia and cost RM51 million.
Yesterday, PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli had alleged that the federal minister’s brother, whom he identified as Raslan Dahlan, was awarded a lucrative contract for the Expo Negaraku 2017 project.
However, the Pandan MP later backtracked. Barely two hours after he went live on Facebook with his expose, he was forced to remove the posts after finding out that Raslan was not Rahman’s elder brother.
Rahman went on to say that Rafizi’s allegation that he had awarded the project to his brother was serious as many were easily influenced by the MP.
“Those who know nothing about this issue will believe Rafizi’s claims 100%,” he said, adding that the perception created by Rafizi needed to be addressed.
Rahman also hit out at Rafizi’s claim that the information about the project was leaked by an EPU staff member.
“He’s trying to pit me against my officers. This is a dirty tactic. It is not fair to the officials who work day and night.”
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