KUCHING, May 15: Sarawak Pakatan Harapan (PH) chairman Chong Chieng Jen has advised the coalition’s component parties to be very careful of accepting individuals from Barisan Nasional (BN) who wish to jump over.
Strong rumours that former federal Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri Richard Riot is joining Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) have been widely circulating on social media.
When asked if PH will welcome Riot to join PKR, Chong was adamant with his words that it is not appropriate for PH to accept Riot.
“Riot has a political secretary (Datuk Peter Runin) that was charged in court for misappropriation of funds from the Skills Development Fund Corp (SDFC) amounting to RM40 million.
“I will refrain from jumping into any conclusion that he is involved, but as an immediate boss of a political secretary, you are under a lot of suspicion of being part of the scandal or at the very least, you are totally incompetent for not knowing what your political secretary is doing.
“If it was RM4,000 or RM40,000 or RM400,000, you may have overlooked. But this is RM40 million, so don’t tell me you don’t know what happened. If RM40 million is missing from your ministry and you claim innocence, then you are totally incompetent and in negligence of your duty as a Minister of Human Resources,” Chong said after a short meeting with officers from the state Education Department this morning.
He added that under such circumstances, Riot should go through stringent vetting by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) before being accepted into PH, regardless whether it’s through PKR or Parti Amanah Negara, but definitely not through Democratic Action Party (DAP).
“As chairman of state DAP, I wholly reject Riot’s entry into the party. I want to advise our component parties, be careful of such a character. We owe our success to our voters, who voted us in based on integrity and a desire to see a clean government. We don’t want to go off-course from the beginning of this political change,” Chong said.
Serian MP Riot, from Sarawak United Peoples’ Party (SUPP), was the only one in the party who won a seat during \the 14th general election (GE14). Runin is also a member of the SUPP Serian branch. — DayakDaily
