“Things which are easy, we should implement, the ones that are challenging, we should endeavour to implement, while those that have obstacles, we should be brave enough to acknowledge,” he said.

“I have just attended to one of our undertakings, and I pity ministers who have to handle 10 to 20 promises,” he said today at a forum held at Universiti Malaya.

“I am handling one of the promises and it has taken me several weeks, till now I am unable to finalise it, but I will persevere.”

Wan Saiful said the manifesto should be amended in light of the latest economic information and data which had been made available.

“At the time the draft manifesto was being prepared, I had voiced out to our leaders that we would have problems after the end of the election campaign,” said the PPBM strategist who is also the chairman of the National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN).

He also acknowledged that some of the promises made in the manifesto were populist in nature and lacked adequate data.

“If some quarters were to label the Buku Harapan as populist, maybe the first 10 promises could be deemed as such.

“However, that is a small price to pay as 90 other undertakings could be implemented accordingly,” he said.

He said the parts related to economic and financial issues were somewhat problematic as they were unable to obtain the latest official data.

“We were unable to obtain data about the government’s debts and were denied access to the information. For example, I had no idea about the number of PTPTN borrowers who are earning below RM4,000.

“Till now, after my appointment as the chairman of PTPTN, I asked the officials and they too do not have the data,” he said.

He said in view of this he hoped the PH government would in future not deny the opposition the opportunity to obtain this kind of information.