Penguang: Don’t speculate on funds given to each constituency
MIRI: Marudi assemblyman Datu Dr Penguang Manggil yesterday urged netizens not to speculate on the RM5 million allocation given to every state constituency annually as the money is used for development purposes.
“Often, I see people asking on the social media the whereabout of the RM5 million fund. For their information, the allocation is distributed to villages and longhouses for various development projects, including road repairs.
“These projects are then carried out by either Public Works Department, Drainage and Irrigation Department or the local councils.
“We do not have access to the money. We only suggested the projects to be implemented using this money,” he told a press conference after chairing a special meeting with Marudi community leaders at Miri City Council here.
He said some quarters made nasty comments on Facebook when they see many of the roads in Marudi in bad condition, including alleging that he had pocketted some of the money.
“The Miri-Marudi road will be fully completed by March 2019. It is actually ahead of schedule.
“Some stretches of the road are bad due to the rainy season. Even after we have laid the gravels, the heavy rain will make it muddy and some of the gravels will sink into the mud.”
Penguang also urged netizens to be reasonable and not to instigate other people to hate the government when the government representatives were doing their best to help the people.
Still on the Miri-Marudi road project, Penguang said CMS Road Sdn Bhd only received the award letter for the project last month, but they have already started the project long before that.
“If we give it to other contractors, they will not want to start until they have received the award letter.
“But for CMS, it is their commitment to help the people, so they went ahead and did it even before getting the award letter,” he said.
He thus advised members of the public not to instigate others, and be reasonable.
JKR divisional engineer Chong Chi Fam and CMS Roads chief executive officer ( CEO) Lim Jit Yaw were also present at the press conference.