Umno supreme council member Abdul Rahman Dahlan said Shafie had no excuse for not giving Sabah the most allocations when he was the Rural and Regional Development Minister with the previous BN federal government.

Rahman said Shafie’s ministry had the second largest allocation under Najib Razak as prime minister, and billions of ringgit were at Shafie’s disposal.

However, Shafie decided to fight with the Sabah government and the chief minister then, Musa Aman. Throughout the 7 years Shafie held the ministry portfolio, Sabah’s development agenda was crippled, Rahman said.

” When he was the minister, he had the budget in hand, why did he not help to resolve the water and electricity issue in Sabah?” Rahman said.

“I was a minister before. I have assisted many states too. Little bit in Perlis, Pahang, but the most allocation I had given to Sabah,” said Rahman, who was housing minister in the previous government.

He said matters of allocation was the minister’s prerogative and while he was the minister he had given the most allocation for low-cost housing.

Earlier today Shafie, who is now chief minister, had said in response to Umno criticisms that he had only a limited budget while he was a BN federal minister. But he had done his best with the limited RM5 billion allocated to the ministry at the time, he said.

But Rahman said Shafie was one of six federal ministers from Sabah in Najib’s cabinet and could have instructed the ministry to give more allocations to Sabah.

“No state will dare to oppose him and that was the time he had the authority to make the instructions. But look at him now, going about with Putrajaya with the 20% oil royalty issue so he could develop Sabah. There is no excuse for this,” he said.

“No matter how much he asked, until today he is not given the 20% royalty.”