Pensioners urged to join association

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KUCHING: More than 30,000 identified pensioners in the state had yet to become members of the Sarawak Government Pensioners Association (PPKS).

At the moment, the association has only registered about 7,000 members, revealed its president Julaihi Ismail yesterday.

He mentioned that the association faced difficulty in tracing the other pensioners due to financial constraints.

Therefore, he was calling upon all pensioners to come forward for registration.

“There are many benefits if they become members and one of the benefits is we will have bargaining power when we want something from the government, including getting government grants annually.

“But at the moment we cannot do much because our members come up to about 7,000. We are not strong enough,” he told a press conference in conjunction with the ‘National Pensioners Day’ celebration yesterday.

He said when pensioners became members of PPKS, their welfare and interests would be taken care of.

Julaihi added that future planning for PPKS included setting up a coopt to generate income for the association’s expenses.

In addition, he said he hoped the state government would allocate an annual grant for the association to carry out its community programmes and activities. Vice-president Mohd Atei Abang Medaan said they had forwarded a proposal to the Public Service Department to deduct RM1 a month from each pensioner in the state as a way to generate funds for the association.

He said this effort would also enable each pensioner to automatically become a member and their welfare and interests would be taken care.

“We have about 40,000 pensioners throughout the state and if RM1 is being deducted from their pension, we will have RM40,000 a month for the association,” he said.