Chong holding up a copy of The Borneo Post dated Aug 28, 2019 during the conference. Seen is Pending assemblywoman Violet Yong.
KUCHING: Sarawak Pakatan Harapan chief Chong Chieng Jen is not letting off Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg for slamming the federal government even after the chief minister expressed his appreciation for the commencement of repair works on dilapidated schools.
Chong, who is also Sarawak DAP chairman, reiterated at a press conference today that the Finance Ministry had given the go-ahead for the projects on Aug 5, three days before Sarawak paid up the agreed RM350 million.
Referring to Abang Johari’s remarks at a town hall session in Lundu on Sunday, Chong asked if the chief minister had knowingly made baseless statements or was merely ignorant of the progress surrounding the RM350 million allocation.
“It is very unbecoming of Abang Johari to accuse the federal government of not holding up end of the bargain and worse calling (Finance Minister of Malaysia) Lim Guan Eng a liar,” he said.
“For a chief minister to be so trigger-happy, just shooting at people anyhow with no reason, it is very unbecoming.”
Video recordings of the town hall session, which has been uploaded on the Internet and shared on social media, showed the chief minister saying “pembulak” (‘liar’ in local Malay) in exasperation when talking about the dilapidated schools but he did not name any minister in particular.
Chong had on Tuesday also issued a statement blasting Abang Johari over the matter.
He emphasised today that the RM350 million was on top of the RM100 million announced in the Budget 2019 tabled last year.
Yesterday, the Chief Minister’s Office issued a statement in which Abang Johari thanked the Federal Finance and Education ministries for the commencement of the school repair projects.
The statement was issued after he was briefed by the Technical Committee on the Implementation of Dilapidated Schools Redevelopment in Sarawak under a total allocation of RM1 billion.
“He wishes to extend his appreciation to the committee members, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Education for their commitment to ensure that the redevelopment initiative is duly implemented for the benefit of the students,” the statement read.
The state government had provided a list of 37 dilapidated schools in urgent need of repair.
Lim had said the tender for seven schools were advertised on Monday and that the tender for the remaining 30 schools would be issued at the end of October this year.