“I barred him? This is a blatant lie,” Musa told reporters at an event in Tongod, Sabah, today.
He said the former rural minister was trying to find an excuse for his failure to implement projects in Sabah.
Shafie was the rural and regional development minister from 2009 to 2015, when he was dropped from the Cabinet following a fallout with Prime Minister Najib Razak.
“Shafie had RM7.5 billion provided for his ministry, for Sabah alone,” Musa said. “I thought this would greatly help Sabah. But I was wrong.
“Now that those projects have not met their objectives and Shafie is in the opposition, he conveniently passes the buck and blames things on me.”
Musa said there was no reason for him to block Shafie in Sabah, as the state needed all the help from the federal government.
“So why would I make it difficult?” he asked. “I want to see greater development in Sabah in terms of infrastructure and basic utilities such as water and electricity as well as roads, especially in the rural areas.
“If anything, stopping such projects will put me at a disadvantage. When something goes wrong in Sabah, they would blame the chief minister, not anyone else,” he added.
Shafie made the claim against Musa after he was accused of ignoring many districts in Sabah when he was still with Umno.