BUTTERWORTH, Sept 24 — Offered a place on the state’s welfare board, Barisan Nasional (BN) Penang opposition leader Datuk Jahara Hamid wants a spot on either the land or housing committees instead.

“If the state government offers me a place in either the land matters and land development committee or housing committee, I am willing to sit in either committees,” the Teluk Ayer Tawar state assemblyman told a press conference this morning.

Immediately after the general election in May and the formation of the state executive committees, three BN state assemblymen — Pulau Betong assemblyman Muhd Farid Saad, Sungai Acheh state assemblyman Mahmud Zakaria and Jahara — were offered places in the welfare committee.

All three rejected the offers.

Today, Jahara asked why the BN representatives had been limited to the single committee and not offered spots in the two she mentioned.

“We did not receive any other invitation to join other committees so I want to know why we were not invited to join committees like housing or land,” she said.

Though Jahara had welcomed the Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng’s recent announcement that RM40,000 allocation per year will be given to the 10 BN assemblymen for small-scale development projects, she expressed suspicions over the motive behind it.

“I believe it is just a ploy for him to distract the people from his party’s central executive committee elections this weekend,” she said.

Lim had in his statement days earlier criticised the BN state assemblymen for their refusal to sit in the state executive committees, and labelled them as un-cooperative with the PR state government.

He had reasoned that they were invited to sit in some committees so that they could play a role in the committees while at the same time be able to put to good use the allocations for their constituencies.

“We want them to be in the committees as we are apprehensive as to whether the BN assemblymen will adhere to the current standard operating procedure of open competitive tender and the prohibition of involvement of any family members of the committee member in any government projects,” Lim had said in his statement.

In his announcement, the RM40,000 allocation will be disbursed to the state assemblymen starting next year and this decision was made by the state executive councillors on Sept 18.

The decision will be tabled at the state Budget 2014 at the Penang Legislative Assembly this year end.