By Dorcas Ting
KUCHING, March 9: In the defamation suit filed by SUPP president Dr Sim Kui Hian against DAP Sarawak chairman Chong Chieng Jen over an alleged defamatory statement regarding the allocation of funds for food assistance amid the Covid-19 crisis, three witnesses were called to testify at the Kuching High Court here today.
The sixth witness for the plaintiff was Achu Jupaw @ Johan Jupan, 64, a pensioner and former Senior Accountant under the Premier’s Office in the Administration Unit Department.
During the cross-examination conducted by the counsel for the defendant, Michael Kong, he agreed that the 12 payment vouchers for the 12 divisions in Sarawak show that the food aid allocation of RM200,000 per state constituency was remitted to the respective Divisional Disaster Management Committee’s (DDMC) bank accounts.
He also confirmed that he is not a signatory to the bank account of the 12 DDMCs in Sarawak, therefore he does not know who DDMC has paid or remitted money to in respect of food aid allocation.
He was only able to testify to who received the food aid allocation of RM200,000 per state constituency directly from the Sarawak Implementation Monitoring Unit (SIMU) and had no personal knowledge regarding any transaction after the food aid allocation has been deposited with the respective DDMCs.
He said, based on the payment vouchers, no money was paid to any Sarawak assemblyman in respect of money transferred pursuant to SIMU’s payment voucher.
The seventh witness for the plaintiff, Najwa Illiani Jahiden, 34, an assistant accountant for the Sarawak Treasury Deparment, also testified that she did not know who DDMCs had paid or transferred any part of the money that they received from the treasury department.
The eighth witness for the plaintiff was Sharifah Rodziah Sayeed Aman Ghazali, an accountant at the State Treasury Department.
She explained that when the payment voucher has been issued by SIMU, it must go through payment processing which was done by the Treasury Department and this involves another separate process of verifying the payment vouchers based on the supporting documents. Only then the money as stated therein would be released to an intended recipient as stated in the payment voucher.
She confirmed that she has no personal knowledge regarding any transactions after the food aid allocation has been deposited with the respective DDMCs as she is not a signatory to any of the bank accounts of the 12 DDMCs in Sarawak.
She also confirmed that no money was paid to any Sarawak assemblyman in respect of money transferred pursuant to SIMU’s payment vouchers.
Both parties finished examining three witnesses today. The plaintiff has six more witnesses to call to testify in Court.
High Court Judge Haji Alwi Abdul Wahab fixed March 21 for the continuation of the trial.
Counsels Shankar Ram, Russell Lim, Yu Ying Ying appeared for the plaintiff while Counsels Chong Siew Chiang, Michael Kong and Brenda Chong appeared for the defendant. — DayakDaily
