Participating in the Dewan Rakyat debate on the recent floods, the Amanah president recalled his visit to the flood-hit Taman Sri Muda. He said he went to the bank of the Sungai Muda to have a look.

“I found that the water level of the river was much lower than that of the floodwater in the area, and that the water was subsiding slowly. When I asked the troops standing there why the floodwater was subsiding slowly, they said the pump was not working and that they had to get a new unit to pump out the floodwater.

“I know that I was no longer the defence minister, but I still asked them – why couldn’t they just bomb the pump so that the stagnant floodwater could flow out into the river?

“A damaged bund can always be repaired. If we can spend billions of ringgit on repaying interest on 1MDB debts, why can’t we spend far less on building new bunds?” he asked.

He told the Dewan Rakyat he did not blame the troops as they could not act without orders from their superiors.

He criticised ministers who went to flood-hit areas when they should be at the disaster response command centres giving instructions to frontliners carrying out rescue and relief work so that the process would be more orderly.

The former defence minister said that in emergencies, Malaysia should not hesitate to seek help from other countries, especially those in the Southeast Asia region, as Malaysia had signed the Asean Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response in 2005.

“We helped Laos when it was hit by floods in 2020, and Indonesia when it faced earthquakes. We should not hesitate to seek their help when we are struggling with natural disasters in our own backyard,” he added.