Zulkarnain (left) holding the letter that he will send to Anwar, demanding the RM50,000 be returned to the people of Beaufort. Next to him is Pakatan NGO Pro BN secretary Sabir Saida.
KOTA KINABALU: Pakatan NGO Pro BN has called on opposition leader Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim, to return the RM50,000 allegedly paid by Beaufort member of parliament Datuk Seri Panglima Lajim Ukin to purchase a ‘love letter’ in a fund-raising auction on September 29 last year.
Its president, Zulkainain Mahdar, said the NGO would be sending an official letter to demand that the RM50,000 be returned to the people of Beaufort.
Primarily, he said the NGO is questioning the source of the RM50,000, which to them is “no small amount”, and as tax-paying citizens, members of the NGO and himself deserved to know where the money came from.
“If he (Lajim) says it was his own money, then we would like to know where is his integrity as the people’s representative? Imagine if the RM50,000 is used to feed or aid the people instead of buying a piece of paper like the ‘love letter’, how many people could have benefitted from it?
“If he used it to give RM500 to the hardcore poor in his area, he could have helped almost a thousand poor families in Beaufort. If he used to help parents with schooling children for example, for them to buy school bags, uniforms, etc, he could have helped up to 2,500 parents. Why waste such a big amount of money on a piece of paper?” questioned Zulkarnain.
He added that despite the sentimental value of the letter, Lajim, as a people’s representative, should have put the people of Beaufort first and thought about how much such a big amount could have benefitted the people.
The people, he said, should reject such a leader.
“So now we are demanding that Dato’ Seri Anwar return the RM50,000 to the people of Beaufort, who deserve the money better,” said Zulkarnain.