Najib said when Shafie’s requests were rejected, he would write letters of appeal.

“It’s rare for people to write such appeal letters. There was no other minister like him. It came to a point that his applications for limited tenders, and letters of appeal piled up at the finance ministry,” Najib said in a Facebook posting which included two photographs of letters allegedly sent by Shafie.

Najib said Shafie was annoyed that his requests were often denied by the federal government, then run by the Barisan Nasional. Shafie was the rural and regional development minister in 2013, while Najib was prime minister and finance minister.

Shafie was removed from his ministerial posts during a cabinet reshuffle in 2015, after openly criticising the 1MDB scandal. He later formed Warisan and became Sabah chief minister when his party and allies took control of the Sabah state government at the 2018 general election.

His name was recently proposed by former Pakatan Harapan chairman Dr Mahathir Mohamad as the PH candidate to be prime minister should the coalition win the next general election.

Najib said: “Maybe when he becomes the ninth prime minister, he can approve the request for limited tenders”. He also claimed that Shafie was already doing so as Sabah chief minister.

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