PUTRAJAYA, Jan 3 — Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad alleged today that the National Transformation 2050 (TN50) was the federal government’s admission that it failed to deliver on his Vision 2020.

Speaking to reporters at Pakatan Harapan (PH) inaugural weekly "Policy Talk”, Dr Mahathir further claimed that the new initiative was meant to distract the public from the alleged failure.

"But TN50 is a fair copy (of Vision 2020) and their admission is that they need another 32 years before they can accomplish TN50.

He then claimed that Barisan Nasional has no intention of delivering on TN50 as the current leaders would no longer be in power then.

Dr Mahathir did not contrast this to his introduction of Vision 2020 in 1991. He stepped down in 2003.

Today, he claimed his PH pact would be able to deliver on Vision 2020, albeit not on the original schedule.

"We do have plans to make Vision 2020 a success but it might be a few years too late as we have lost nine years because there were no plans to implement it by the year 2020. But I don’t want to go too far (into the details of the plan),” said Dr Mahathir.

Vision 2020 was Dr Mahathir’s brainchild introduced during the tabling of the Sixth Malaysia Plan, and aims for Malaysia to achieve self-sufficient industrialised nation status by 2020.

TN50 was launched by Najib on January 19, 2017, and covers the country’s continued development from 2020 until 2050. It aims to take Malaysia beyond developed nation status to become one of the world’s leading states.