KUALA LUMPUR, July 24 — Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz said photographs of him eating “nasi ganja” being recirculated online were from last year, after the images were used to allege that the finance minister sent a helicopter to Ipoh, Perak, for a takeaway order.
Yesterday, a helicopter caused a commotion in the Perak state capital after it landed there to collect 36 packets of the local rice dish.
An old post of Zafrul eating the “nasi ganja”, also known as “nasi vanggey”, were then juxtaposed with those of the helicopter and used to infer that he was the customer behind the unusual landing.
“It was amusing to get WhatsApp messages purporting that I ordered ‘nasi ganja’ from Ipoh using a helicopter. They used old photographs of me eating ‘nasi vanggey’ from December 2020 but cropped off the date,” he said on his Facebook page.
“I’ve actually not eaten ‘nasi vanggey’ for a long time, but from using a helicopter to order, it would have been better to use the various delivery services such as Nasi Kandaq Transporter, Nasi Kandaq Runner, etc. and help small entrepreneurs.”
Yesterday, Perak police chief Datuk Mior Faridalatrash Wahid confirmed that a helicopter was spotted on the field, located at the city centre, from 9.55am to 10.15am.
He said checks with the Ipoh Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia (CAAM) showed that the landing was unauthorised as the charter helicopter was only cleared to land at the Sultan Azlan Shah Airport (LTSAS) for that flight.
A worker at the restaurant also confirmed the order, and said they had doubted its authenticity when it was first called in.
The person said they were surprised when the helicopter appeared, and noted that it was an expensive way to collect the packets of rice that sold for around RM10 each.
