KUCHING: Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah yesterday denied the claim made by Rural Development Deputy Minister R Sivarasa that the Sarawak government had rejected federal funds for village heads.
Reacting to Sivarasa’s remarks here on Sunday, Uggah said the state government itself had to pay the village heads for several months because the funds were not forthcoming.
“The Deputy Minister said (we) rejected the funds, he better check his facts. We never rejected the funds.
“In fact, the first few months, there were no funds paid to us – we paid. After that they sent the funds (and) we accepted, we never rejected,” he said when met after presenting grants from the Unit for Other Religions (Unifor) to state assemblymen at Wisma Bapa Malaysia here yesterday.
Uggah, who is also Second Finance Minister, further explained that when Pakatan Harapan (PH) took over the federal government in May last year, the Rural Development Ministry had decided to rename the village security and development committee (JKKK) as village community management council (MPKK).
He said that although the structure and organisation remained the same, the ministry had decided to reduce the salary of the JKKK chairmen.
“In Semenanjung (peninsula), the salary of chairman was reduced from RM900 to RM500. I brought it to the cabinet and we decided we should maintain JKKK. I went back to the ministry and they agreed to keep the name (JKKK), pay the same RM500 but in Sarawak we’ve been paying RM900. We don’t feel it’s fair to reduce RM900 to RM500, so the chief minister decided to top up RM400 and maintain it at RM900,” he said.
Uggah remarked that Sivarasa was ‘confused’ about the system of community leaders in the state, saying: “Outsiders don’t know our system.”
He said in Sarawak, there are village heads who are tuai rumah, ketua kampung and kapitan, who are the ones who chair the JKKK in each village and are paid the RM900.
The other category of community leaders are penghulu, pemanca and temenggong, who are fully paid by the Sarawak government, Uggah explained.
Sivarasa had said after PKR Sarawak’s annual general meeting launching here on Sunday that the Sarawak government had rejected federal funds to pay village heads in the state due to the tensions with the PH government.