By Pinus Gondili of STAR Beluran
TELUPID : Recently there was one "Karnivel Siok" organised for youths in Telupid by the office of Beluran's member of parliament and the sub-district State Youth and Sport Department.
The three-day carnival on Apr 27-29 was badly organised using public money, poorly attended and is now being questioned by the public and that a related police report had been lodged. I ask the Beluran MP to clarify on this issue as it involves peoples' money.
From the reports that we received, we never knew how much was spent for this three-day Karnivel Siok but we were informed that it was an idea hatched to so-called pave for the MP to allocate RM4,000 for each of the 12 youth associations around Telupid.
We were told that however, an officer from the Beluran MP office by the name of Melton Martin, who is believed to be UMNO liaison officer in Beluran, managed to convince 10 out of the 12 associations to deduct RM1,000 each from their RM4,000 to be reverted back to him for the purpose of organising the carnival.
Now according to reports from those in the know, the carnival's organiser was LabukDotFM (we don't know what it is) of which Melton on behalf of the organiser promised several things. They were: the organisers would provide foods for the participants for three days; provide t-shirts, canopy; and exhibition booths. We understood none of these were provided by the so-called organiser !
We understood that foods for participants were in the end provided for by the Telupid Youth and Sport Officer ! The officer stood in to do the booth as well as the UMNO guy never delivered on his pledge. We don't know if it is true that the officer even used his own money to buy foods as claimed by some reports but if this is true then the MP must explain to the rakyat.
Heated arguments of course were exchanged between parties in such situation. The common UMNO-style manipulations poked its head, and even the permanent secretary of the State Youth and Sport Ministry, Datuk Suzannah Liaw was dragged in in the Telupid fiasco.
This Telupid case was just but a tip of the iceberg. And this is not the first time we heard of such a mess in spending public money on useless programme by this government especially by our MPs.
Star also heard similar things going on in other districts whereby small allocations from MP and ADUN were distributed through cronies for allegedly non-existent projects or programmes or at best useless programmes. My colleagues shall expose them in due time.
The one in Telupid, Karnivel Siok, even its objective is never properly explained.
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