KUCHING, Jan 2 — The Sarawak government’s groundbreaking Unit For Other Religions (Unifor) deputy director Richard Lon today officially took over as its director after the mandatory retirement of Datuk Dr Ngenang Janggu at the age of 65.
The handover of duties at the state secretariat at Wisma Bapa Malaysia was witnessed by Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah, who is also the minister-in-charge of Unifor.
Lon, 50, was the special administrative officer of former Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Alfred Jabu for 11 years before his latest appointment.
Ngenang was appointed director of Unifor, which is under the Chief Minister’s Office, in February 2017 after retiring as the permanent secretary to the state ministry of modernisation of agriculture and rural economy.
Unifor is the brainchild of a former Sarawak chief minister the late Tan Sri Adenan Satem who saw the need for a unit to be set up to look after the affairs of non-Islamic religions.
Sarawak is the only state in Malaysia to have such a unit dedicated to helping different houses of worship, not only in their physical development but in securing building sites as well as new cemetery sites.
For this year Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Openg has announced an allocation of RM50 million for UNIFOR, which was previously known as Unit for Non-Islamic Affairs.
