Umno may be guilty of criminal breach of trust if it does not return the money rejected by the state government to the senior citizens, said Komtar assemblyperson Ng Wei Aik.

penang lodge mcmc report against blogger 210910 ng wei aik Ng, who is political secretary to Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, condemned the act of collecting the money from the elderly without proper accountability.

The money is part of the state's senior citizen appreciation programme , where RM100 is awarded to the elderly aged 60 and above, and RM1,000 to beneficiaries upon death of their parents.

"Senior citizens who feel they have been misled by Umno should make a police report," suggested Ng.

"If they (Umno) have taken the money and cannot return it to the state government, they should return it to the senior citizens who parted with their money," he added.

 State won't accept money

Yesterday, Penang Umno Youth chief Norman Dhalan tried to return the sum of RM23,700 to the state government but failed to do so when the latter refused to accept the money.

The amount was collected by Umno when Malay Muslim senior citizens rejected the money as they considered the cash to be ‘haram'.

The money collected had been returned in stages to Umno in several constituencies including Bayan Baru , Bukit Mertajam and Penaga following the controversy that it was derived from gambling sources.

NONE Norman was part of the crowd who staged a noisy protest against Lim at the front gate of the Penang state legislature assembly yesterday.

He had pleaded to meet with Lim, but was instead received by special assistants to deputy chief ministers I (Mansor Othman) and II (P. Ramasamy) - Rezal Husairi Md Zaki and Satees Muniandy - who refused to accept the cash which came in a plastic bag.

The duo claimed that the money was unaccountable as there was no name list accompanying it to indicate who had returned the money and how much had they returned.

They were so insistent about not accepting the money that a minor skirmish occurred between the negotiating parties.

Norman who was later escorted out of the state assembly compound was upset that after repeatedly asking about the money, Lim and his officers had rejected Umno's effort to return it.

The cash was handed over to him as ‘trustee' (pemegang amanah) by state opposition leader and Penaga assemblyperson Azhar Ibrahim who was suspended from the assembly for six months for uttering seditious words in the last sitting in May.

NONE Norman ( in dark shirt) had also told the media that Umno has collected money from about 1,000 senior citizens, however, not all of them had returned the amount in full, as they had spent it earlier.

Ng said no state exco member, assemblypersons or officers have the mandate to accept the money returned by Umno.

"If senior citizens want to return this money, they have to be present themselves at the District office and explain why they want to give it back," he said.

"If Norman says Umno has collected money from about 1,000 people, then he should be returning about RM100,000; where is the rest of the money?" he queried.