Uggah shows his ministerial winding-up speeches for the Ministry of Modernisation of Agriculture, Native Land and Regional Development as well as the Finance Ministry, prior to the start of the morning session of the State Legislative Assembly yesterday.
KUCHING: The Village Development and Security Committee (JKKK) has been playing its role very effectively in ensuring villages receive government aid, said Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah.
The deputy chief minister said because of this, there was no reason for the federal government to insist on setting up the Federal Village Community Management Council (MPKKP) in the state.
“In June 2018, the Pakatan Harapan (PH) federal government decided to change the name of JKKK to MPKK (Village Community Management Council). At that time, we the state government conveyed our decision to maintain JKKK.
“There was no valid reason to change the name to MPKK and the federal Ministry of Rural Development had agreed at that time. They allowed us to maintain the JKKK as they played similar function,” he said in his winding-up speech at the State Legislative Assembly (DUN) yesterday.
Uggah added that at the same time, however, the PH government decided to reduce the allowance of the chairman of MPKKs nationwide (JKKK in Sarawak) to RM500 from RM900.
In Sarawak, JKKK chairmen are the ‘Ketua Kaum’ comprising Tuai Rumah, Ketua Kampung and Kapitan.
“Nevertheless, the state government decided to maintain the RM900 for their monthly allowance. The new allowance policy is that federal Ministry of Rural Development only pays RM500 per month.
“Since we have decided to maintain the allowance for the chairman of JKKK at RM900, so the state government pays the balance of RM400,” he said.
Uggah also expressed his regret on the announcement by Works Minister Baru Bian on Nov 6 that starting next year, the federal government will stop paying its RM500 allowance for the JKKKs in the state.
“I wish to assure all the JKKK chairmen not to be worried by that decision because the state government will continue to pay the RM900 per month from the 2020 State Budget.
“I wish to emphasise here that the JKKK has always been playing its role very effectively. We are therefore surprised that the PH government had decided to set up MPKKP which is supposed to play similar role,” he said.
The Sarawak government in the 2020 State Budget announced an allocation of RM100 million for JKKKs throughout the state.