Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah
SIBU: The incident of a woman given a ‘sarong’ to wear before being attended to by Road Transport Department (RTD) officers draws brickbats from Assistant Minister of Social Development (Youth) Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah.
He said the Chief Secretary to the Government and his officers should not be overzealous when addressing this attire issue.
“Don’t make a mockery of Malaysia. Sarawak should tell the chief secretary that this ridiculous ruling is not applicable to federal government agencies in the state in order to preserve the existing racial and religious harmony.
“I feel sad for this beloved country if we have insensitive civil servants acting like ‘moral police’. Malaysia is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural country,” said Abdul Karim, who is Asajaya assemblyman.
He was commenting on the Facebook posting where the woman included a photograph of herself wearing a blouse and a skirt that reached just above her knees, claiming that she was handed a ‘sarong’ by a RTD officer to wear before they could attend to her over the counter.
The woman also posted another picture of her in the premises wearing the ‘sarong’.
She was handed the ‘sarong’ while lining up to get the queue number to transfer ownership of her car which she had sold.
In the Facebook posting, she claimed after wearing the ‘sarong’ she found herself sitting in front of a counter window where only the top part of her body was visible to the officer, adding that she did not know if she should laugh or cry.
The posting on Monday has gone viral.
“I can accept the chief secretary’s ruling on ‘decent attire’ for the public and staff attending to official function at the department but do not go overboard. There’s nothing wrong going to government buildings in skirts or tight jeans or even shorts if one goes there to pay bills and so on,” he said.