KUCHING, Aug 18 — Deputy Premier Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah today warned non-Islamic houses of worship not to invest funds allocated to them by the Unit for Other Religions (Unifor), but to be spent on building and repairing houses of worship.
He said the Unifor’s audit team had discovered that some houses of worship had preferred to keep the funds in their fixed deposit accounts instead.
“Our policy now is that if you do not spend the allocation given to you, we will not give you any additional funds you need to complete the construction of your churches or temples,” said Uggah, who is also the minister in charge of Unifor.
He was presenting cheques worth RM24.49 million to 177 non-Islamic houses of worship here under the second phase of the distribution of funds for this year.
Uggah said the state government has allocated RM100 million this year to Unifor for distributions to the non-Islamic religious faiths for them to build or repair houses of worship, and dismissed allegations that the Anglicans had received the lion's share.
He denied the allegations, citing his membership in the Anglican Church, and explaining that the committee would decide on the amount rather than himself.
He said the Roman Catholics had received the most with RM81.6 million, or 24.5 per cent out of RM333.1 million allocated to the non-Islamic houses of worship since 2017.
In comparison, he said the Anglicans received RM70.5 million or 21.2 per cent, while the Borneo Evangelical Mission received RM59.7 million or 17.9 per cent.
This was followed by the Buddhists (RM37 million or 11.1 per cent), the Methodist Church (RM27.977 million) and the Seventh Adventist Church (RM12.026 million).
“Other houses of worship like Confucianism, Taoism and traditional religions received a total of RM10.2 million,” he said, adding that an allocation of RM9.9 million was distributed to the Sikh temples and RM4.3 million to Hindu temples.
