Rep wants government to review appointments of community leaders
MIRI: Following the recent revelation about a SUPP member who was convicted of corruption being appointed as a community leader, Pujut assemblyman Dr Ting Tiong Choon has urged the government to review the existing system of appointment or face the alienation of community leaders by the public in years to come.
“In view of this, I would like to call on the state government to review the appointment of all community leaders, including Ketua Kampung, Tuai Rumah, Kapitan, Penghulu and others.
“It is necessary to review the appointment procedures in order to appoint only leaders with good social status and good character. Any leader who is of questionable character should be excluded from the process,” Dr Ting said in a press conference here on Sunday.
He said of the more than 5,000 community leaders, most of them are considered as “political appointees”.
“They were nominated by their respective parties, (names) submitted to the District Office, ‘scrutinised’ by the elected representatives, then finally appointed by the Sarawak Government and the minister responsible for this is currently Minister for Local Government Dr Sim Kui Hian,” he pointed out.
Dr Ting said what Dr Sim needed to do now is to apologise to the public and terminate the appointment with immediate effect in order to show that his Ministry was genuinely sincere with the anti- corruption policy.
“If the Minister fails to take these two actions, the recent pledging of anti- corruption of the whole cabinet is meaningless and shall be considered as an empty tin which may make very loud noise but with emptiness.
“The government shall also ask all community leaders to pledge his or her ‘anti- corruption’ stand.
Dr Ting stressed that any community leader who was not ‘clean’ with MACC or have a bad record in the police system should resign immediately.
“It would be both embarrassing and awkward to all parties when this is exposed to the public in the future,” he said adding the next generations would always be taught to learn and follow those who are good role models including community leaders.