Para Sukma medalists assured of forthcoming rewards

SIBU: Sarawak Para Sukma athletes, who won medals in the just concluded 2018 Perak Para Sukma will be rewarded as promised, says Welfare, Community Well Being, Women, Family and Childhood Development Minister Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah.

She said there is a budget for this and in fact, incentives had already been given out to the gold medalists.

“Now, we are working on other winners. There was time constraint previously for us to do it for the whole group. So, we did it for the gold winners.

“After that, it will for recipients of silver and bronze medals. It is all there because we have budgeted for it,” Fatimah said.

She was speaking to reporters after officiating at the presentation of ‘Reading Seeds’ kit at Sibu Civic Centre yesterday.

“We need budget for training and we started talent identification since last year when we were given the responsibilities.

“Talent identification, training, coaches, classifications and motivation – all this required budget, which we forwarded to the (state) cabinet previously and approved.

“We will fulfil that promise ( of giving out the incentives to winners),” she said when asked if incentives would be given to winners as Sarawak emerged the champion for the 13th time for Para Sukma.

When addressing the crowd earlier, she expressed her delight that Sarawak collected 162 medals, comprising 61 gold, 62 silver and 39 bronze to comfortably beat nearest rival Sabah with their tally of 94 medals.

“We are the champion for the 13th time and that is not an easy thing to do,” Fatimah enthused.