Thesun 2009-03-02 Page04 District Officers Dropped From Local Councils

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theSun

| MONDAY MARCH 2 2009

news without borders Emergency sitting to go ahead: Sivakumar » From Front Page said he and legal experts had studied the Perak constitution and the assembly’s standing orders in detail and determined that it is within his power to call for the emergency sitting. He said Abdullah did not have power to interpret the Standing Orders and his job was to follow the orders of the speaker. He added that the Sultan’s consent was not needed in this case. He also said the emergency sitting will go ahead as planned. Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak said on Saturday that Sivakumar could not call the sitting as the court had yet to decide on the status of the (state) government. Earlier yesterday, Chan and another of Sivakumar’s lawyers Augustine Anthony told a press conference in the latter’s office that the assembly was adjourned sine die last November and as such the Speaker had the power to convene a new sitting. “However, if the Sultan of Perak had prorogued (suspended) or dissolved the 12th State Assembly, then the Speaker had to get the consent of His Royal Highness to convene the 13th State As-

sembly,” Chan said. He said as such, the Speaker had the authority under Section 90 of the Standing Orders to call for the sitting. On Friday, Sivakumar called for the sitting, invoking Standing Orders 8 and 11, to vote on two motions, for which he had received two notices on Tuesday. The motions were by Titi Serong assemblyman Dr Khalid Idham Lim Abdullah and Tej assemblyman Chang Lih Kang regarding the constitutional crisis which erupted when three assembly members quit their parties to become BN-friendly independents, leading to the fall of the 11-month-old Pakatan Rakyat government. Perak DAP chief Datuk Ngeh Koo Ham said the motions sought to dissolve the State Assembly and reaffirm support for Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin as mentri besar. Sivakumar has also barred BN’s Mentri Besar Datuk Zambry Abdul Kadir and his six executive councillors from attending tomorrow’s sitting. Also barred are the three former Pakatan Rakyat assemblymen of Behrang (Jamaluddin Mohd Radzi), Changkat Jering (Mohd Osman Mohd Jailu) and Jelapang (Hee Yit Foong), who are now independents.

District officers dropped from local councils by Opalyn Mok [email protected]

Freespace: Hopes sink in limbo land pg 11

GEORGE TOWN: In a departure from convention, the state government has dropped the five district officers from the two local councils. Traditionally, the district officers are ex-officio members of the Penang Island Municipal Council (MPPP) and the Seberang Prai Municipal Council (MPSP). The five district officers dropped are northeast district’s Azizi Zakaria and southwest district’s Hasan Saad from the MPPP and Seberang Prai Utara’s Mokhtar Mohd Jaip, Seberang Prai Tengah’s Ruslan Yahaya and Seberang Prai Selatan’s Jusni Ismail from the MPSP. When contacted, local government committee chairman Chow Kon Yeow said there is no need for the district officers to be fullfledged councillors because as district officers, some council matters will also be referred to them. “They don’t even attend the full council meeting and whether they are full-fledged councillors or not, they are also involved in certain council matters.”

He said having the district officers as councillors was a duplication of duties since district officers already have an avenue to handle certain council matters such as those involving land matters. “We do not need them as councillors as they do not serve in the sense of political representatives in the areas,” he said, adding it was not in the Local Government Act that they must be councillors. The five district officers were among 12 local councillors who have been dropped and are being replaced with new faces for the duration of March 1 to Dec 31. The state executive council had on Friday approved the appointment of 13 new councillors and re-appointment of 35 local councillors. Besides Azizi and Hasan, the five other MPPP councillors who were dropped are Tham Weng Fatt (DAP), Chua Kheng Ee (PKR), Abdul Halim Salleh (PAS), Francis Loh Kok Wah (non-governmental organisation), Rizal Faris Mohideen Abdul Kader (NGO). They are being replaced by Ong Ah Teong (DAP), Mohd Razali Haji Abdullah (PKR), Lim Boo Chang (PKR), Abdul Aziz

Ismail (PAS), Asnah Hashim (PAS), Yasir Hafiz Munawar Ali (NGO) and Prof Mohd Zahry Shaikh Abdul Rahim (NGO). The remaining 17 councillors were retained. This means that in the MPPP, there will now be 10 councillors from DAP , eight from PKR, two from PAS and four from NGOs as compared to last year when there were 10 from DAP, seven from PKR, one from PAS, four from NGOs and two district officers. For MPSP, the councillors who were dropped, besides Mokhtar, Ruslan and Jusni, are Norhayati Jaafar (PKR) and Amizudin Ahmad (PKR). The six new faces, including one to fill a vacancy, are M. Chandrasekaran (DAP), Ahmad Farid Md Arshad (PKR), Amir Md Ghazali (PKR), Muhamad Hashim (PKR), Abdul Rahman Ramjan (PAS) and Idersi Ibrahim (NGO). This means that in the MPSP, there will now be 10 councillors from DAP, nine from PKR, two from PAS and three from NGOs compared to nine from DAP, eight from PKR, one from PAS and three from NGOs previously. The new councillors will take their oath this week.

Help for retrenched workers in Selangor by Hemananthani Sivanandam [email protected]

SHAH ALAM: The Selangor government is offering help for workers who were retrenched due to the economic downturn. The Workers’ Retrenchment Action Committee in Selangor, in a press statement, said popular job portal JobStreet. com can now be accessed at www. selangor.gov.my The website provides retrenched workers an opportunity to send in their resumes and apply for the jobs listed in the website. It also helps jobseekers match with jobs currently available in Selangor. The website is currently available only in English but the Bahasa Malaysia version will be available on March 7.

The committee also said that it has sent survey forms to all companies in Selangor regarding the retrenchment process used by the companies. To date, five companies have responded. The survey is also aimed at finding out about jobs available in these companies, for record purposes. Meanwhile, retrenched workers who would like to take up new skills can enrol at the WIT (We Insist In Training) College in Klang. WIT provides engineering studies, vocational and technical skills training. It also conducts many part-time courses under its continuing education programme to enhance the skills and knowledge of workers. Since its establishment, it has trained more than 30,000 youths and employees.

Four women soldiers make army history KUALA LUMPUR: Four women soldiers created history in conjunction with the Royal Malaysian Army’s 76th anniversary yesterday when two of them became the first women to receive their wings while two others were given the honour to be parade commanders. Kapt Diana Hamdan, 27, from the First Royal Artillery Regiment, and Kapt Siti Nurfarhana Mohd Aminuddin, 26, from the Royal Military Police Corps, received their ‘Military Wing Standard’ while Kapt Ungku Fatimah Zaharah Ungku Abu Bakar, 24, from the Royal Signals Regiment was given the honour to be the RMA’s colour bearer and Kapt Nornie Fathma

Ab Rahman, 26, as first female parade adjutant. Army chief Jen Tan Sri Ismail Jamaluddin said there was no gender discrimination in the army. “It is up to the individuals to determine their direction and if women are willing to shoulder the responsibility, the tasks and are tough, they can walk as tall as their male colleagues,” he said after the anniversary celebration at the Sungai Besi army camp. Ismail said the army had no problems having women soldiers and that more women were joining the army as a profession. Meanwhile, Diana, who is from Merlimau, Malacca, said it

was not easy for her to compete with her male colleagues but she persevered and managed to complete the one-and-halfyear course before she finally got her wings. She joined the army four years ago as an artillery officer and her next goal is to be an aircraft captain. For Ungku Fatimah Zaharah, from Subang Jaya and who holds a bachelor of science degree in human resource development from Universiti Putera Malaysia, and Sarawakian Nornie Fathma, a graduate from Universiti Teknologi Mara, they regarded their achievement as a success for women in a male-dominated field. – Bernama