KUCHING: The state government has never rejected the funds allocated by the Pakatan Harapan (PH) federal government for the salaries of ‘ketua kaum’, clarifies Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas.
This rejection of federal funds was previously alleged by Rural Development Deputy Minister Sivarasa Rasiah.
“I think he had better check his facts,” said Uggah to reporters after presenting cheques to representatives of various state constituencies in the first phase of the Unit for Other Religions (Unifor) fund distributions at Wisma Bapa Malaysia in Petra Jaya here, yesterday.
He disclosed that for the first few months, there were no funds received from the federal government, and the state government had to come up with the salaries for the ‘ketua kaum’.
“After that, they sent us the funds and we accepted,” said Uggah, who is also State Second Finance Minister.
The State Minister of Modernisation of Agriculture, Native Land and Regional Development also said that after PH took over the federal government last May, they had decided to rename the village security and development committee (JKKK) as village community management council (MPKK).
“The roles are the same. The structures are also the same,” he said. However, he pointed out that in West Malaysia, the chairman’s salary was decided to be reduced from RM900 to RM500.
Upon bringing the matter to the state cabinet, Uggah said that the state government felt that the name of JKKK should be retained — and this was agreed upon by the federal government, who added that they would provide the same RM500 for ‘ketua kaum’ in the state.
“But, in Sarawak we have been paying them RM900. We do not feel it is fair to reduce from RM900 to RM500. So, the Chief Minister decided to top up by RM400 (from the state government) and maintain the RM900 salary,” he elaborated.
Uggah sounded that Sivarasa appeared to be confused about all of these matters — “Outsiders do not know our system here.”
“In Sarawak we have two structures — one is the ‘ketua kaum’. These are the ‘tuai rumah’, ‘kapitan’, and ‘ketua kampung’. They are the ones chairing the JKKK in each kampung,” he explained.
“Then we have ‘ketua masyarakat’. These are the ‘penghulu’, ‘pemanca’, and ‘temenggong’,” said Uggah, adding that these were fully paid by the state government.
In addition, he emphasised that the state government did not want to see two ‘tuai rumah’ in one longhouse.
“That would be chaos. It has never happened before, and we hope it will not happen at any time,” he stated, referring to the federal government’s plan to appoint their own ‘tuai rumah’ in the state.
