GEORGE TOWN, July 2 — Penang’s opposition Barisan Nasional (BN) representatives today volunteered their services as registrars for the state’s social welfare programmes in a bid to disprove allegations that they are not helping with the implementation.
According to Penang Opposition Leader Datuk Jahara Hamid, there was now no need for the Penang state government to appoint special officers as co-ordinators to register people under the state’s social welfare programmes.
Calling the move by the state in appointing 10 co-ordinating officers to help the state in implementing its social welfare programmes in state constituencies under BN as a purely political move, she said it was also a waste of government resources.
“Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng’s reason for appointing these co-ordinators was that we (BN assemblymen) were not co-operative in helping them to implement their programmes such as registering the people for the senior citizens appreciation programme is not true as we are willing to assist as we are elected to serve the people,” she said.
The Telok Air Tawar state assemblyman believed the state government’s move in appointing the co-ordinators has “hidden” motives and was not merely to implement government programmes.
“Not only we can help, they can also use other agencies such as the Penang National Department for Culture and Art (JKKN), the district office or even village chiefs to implement those programmes in these constituencies,” she said.
She was responding to the announced by Lim yesterday over the appointment of the officers in the 10 state constituencies that were retained by BN state assemblymen in the May 5 general election.
Lim had said the co-ordinators were appointed to reach out to the people in those constituencies and accused the BN state assemblymen of refusing to participate in state projects and also refusing to join state committees on programmes for the people there.
“It is not true that we are not being co-operative as we will gladly help if it is for the benefit of the people,” Jahara said.
As for BN state assemblymen’s refusal to join state committees, she said they have a valid reason for not joining the committees.
“It is their responsibility now to run the state since they won the elections here so they should run it while we continue to play our role as an opposition for check and balance,” she said.
She accused the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) state government of using the state committees as a way to “gag” the BN state assemblymen if they do join the committees.
“We, as the opposition, must observe and criticise if we find anything lacking but if we are in the committees, we will be effectively ‘gagged’ as we can’t criticise the committees that we are a part of so it is best that we do not join any of their committees,” she said.
In the previous term, BN had also appointed co-ordinators to reach out to the people in PR state and parliamentary constituencies.
This time around, Jahara said there are no plans to appoint co-ordinators for PR constituencies in the state.
“All 10 BN state assemblymen will represent the people of the whole state as the opposition front in Penang so there won’t be any co-ordinators,” she said.
Lim, who is also state PR chief, had denied that the move was in preparation for the next general election and that the co-ordinators were selected by their respective parties, PKR and PAS.
