He said these oil royalties were needed to develop the state.

“I have raised this issue many times. The menteri besar and Cabinet ministers from Kelantan, from both PAS and Umno, should speak up on the oil royalty issue, but everyone remains silent about it.

“We also need to question why the respective party leaders in Putrajaya do not say anything about this,” Zaid said in a video posted on Facebook.

Citing Jeli MP Mustapa Mohamed, he said Mustapa had brought much development to his constituency.

“There is an MRSM (Mara Junior Science College), universities, government offices and the city is well-planned. I believe this is all because Mustapa managed to get a lot of federal allocations to develop Jeli.

“However, other districts are still very much underdeveloped,” he said.

Last year, finance minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz said Petronas would not make any royalty payments to any state in the peninsula, including Kelantan.

However, Zafrul later clarified that Kelantan had received an allocation of RM400 million in petroleum revenue for the years 2020 and 2021.

Meanwhile, Zaid also commented on Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s statement that the government would take a new approach by eradicating hardcore poverty holistically.

According to Ismail, this plan would be implemented in a targeted manner based on the needs of the locality involved.

Zaid said the allocation of RM332.1 billion announced in the 2022 Budget was not enough to eradicate hardcore poverty nationwide.

“That is why I had hoped for the revenue from the oil royalty to be used to develop Kelantan,” he added.