Uggah (sixth left) chairs the meeting with officials from the Sarawak Education Department and others.
KUCHING: Twenty-one mission schools in the rural area will need diesel from April to December this year to power their generator sets.
The federal government is currently providing them with diesel supply up to March.
Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah said the Sarawak Education Department would write to the Education Ministry to request for the supply to be continued until end of the year.
He said he was briefed on the diesel issue during a meeting with officials from the Education Department here yesterday.
Deputy State Secretary Datuk Jaul Samion, Unit For Other Religion (unifor) director Datu Dr Ngenang Janggu, representatives from Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB), Ministry of Education Sarawak office (Science and Technological Research Unit) and the respective Christian groups running the schools were also present.
Uggah said: “If by March there is no response, the Sarawak government will have to step in. We cannot allow the students and teachers to suffer and for classes to be interrupted. We will have to find a solution to help the schools before end of March.”
Uggah is also minister in charge of Unifor, which looks into the interests as well as solve problems faced by people from other religions.
He hoped that the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Research could help to link 17 of those schools to the state grid before March as it had the fund for the purpose.
“Then, we have still have five more schools to help,” said Uggah, who is also Minister of Modernisation of Agriculture, Native Land and Regional Development.