KOTA BARU: The Kelantan government has told certain quarters today to stop manipulating facts on the construction of the Nenggiri hydroelectric dam project in Gua Musang near here.
Deputy Menteri Besar Datuk Mohd Amar Nik Abdullah said they should not politicise the project.
"Many quarters have been accusing that the state government is allowing illegal logging to take place there. These allegations are baseless.
"Every state has an Annual Cut Ration for harvesting timber. All the logging activities were carried out according to the law," he said at the end of the State Executive Councillors' meeting today.
Amar said it could not be ruled out that timber theft might have been occurring in the state's forest reserves.
"There are cases where timbers from the forest reserves in Kelantan were stolen."
He said immediate actions were taken by the relevant department on the matter.
Several quarters had recently alleged that illegal logging activities were taking place at the Nenggiri forest reserve and that the construction of the Nenggiri dam would affect the lives of the Orang Asli community in the area.
They had urged the government to cancel the project.
The RM5 billion project was expected to start generating power supply in mid-2027 and increase the electricity capacity of renewable energy in Peninsular Malaysia.
The project was launched by Menteri Besar Ahmad Yakob on Sunday.