JE fund recipient who didnt get money lodges police report

comments     Kevin Tan     Published     Updated

A Malaysian Malay resident from Bukit Pelanduk in Negri Sembilan  the epicentre of the deadly Nipah virus outbreak two years ago  today lodged a police report on the discrepancies in the MCA Japanese Encephalitis Humanitarian Fund.

Husin @ Abd Ajis Hassan, 64, claimed that he did not receive any money although his name was listed as one of the recipients in the controversial fund.

According to the list of recipients revealed by MCA in October 2000, Husin was among the 400 Malay beneficiaries.

However, Husin said he did not received the RM2,000 stated on the list and has subsequently made a declaration with a commissioner of oaths soon after the list was made public.

The taxi driver, who understands Mandarin and lives in Sungai Nipah, made the police report, accompanied by DAP secretary-general Kerk Kim Hock, at the Dang Wangi police station in Kuala Lumpur this afternoon.

In the report, Husin urged the police to investigate the discrepancies.

Husins police report today adds further weight to the claim by pig farmers in the affected areas that some of the disbursed money went to people whom the fund was not intended for.

The humanitarian fund set up by the MCA in 1999 from public donations was to relieve the suffering of those affected by the Nipah outbreak.

Phantom recipient

Meanwhile, Kerk also revealed that he discovered another Malay Malaysian whose name was on the list but who did not exist in reality.

He said he had checked with the National Registration Department and found that there was no such person by the name of Mageret Gajangan as mentioned on the list which he obtained from MCA two years ago.

Mageret had supposedly received RM25,000 in humanitarian aid from the fund.

Kerk warned that if the MCA failed to provide satisfactory explanation regarding the discrepancies on the list, he would make another police report.

He also lambasted MCA for disbursing the fund to Malay Malaysians.

We are not against the Malays [receiving the fund], but they cant possibly be pig farmers, Kerk said.

Following an outcry from the farmers, fund ex-supervisor Lim Si Cheng declared last May that only Nipah patients and direct family members of deceased farmers were entitled to receive the fund.

However, the farmers found that MCA had disbursed RM21,000 each to 25 people who were believed to be only carriers of the virus, and who were neither adversely affected nor hospitalised for their conditions.

Furthermore, since there are about 200 Nipah carriers in Bukit Pelanduk, the farmers questioned why only this group of 25 people were selected to receive the money.

The pig farmers wanted the money to be disbursed to those who are more in need such as the widows of deceased farmers who need to take care of their families.

Cheap publicity

Kerk reiterated his call for MCA to reveal the latest list of the fund recipients. His earlier attempt with a group of Bukit Pelanduk pig farmers to obtain the updated list from the MCA headquarters last week was foiled when he was told that the list was not available.

Instead, MCA leaders accused Kerk of trying to get cheap publicity for himself.

However, when the pig farmers returned one week later without the cheap publicist in tow as requested, MCA still refused to give them the list.

The MCA JE humanitarian fund is a separate fund from the governments JE Trust Fund, although both came from public generosity to help the pig farmers affected by the 1999 Nipah outbreak.

The government trust fund was set up to compensate affected farmers for culled pigs while the MCA humanitarian fund was established to assist those who were affected by the Nipah outbreak.

Due to the lack of criteria set for the disbursement of the humanitarian fund, there were allegations that MCA had allowed the fund to be abused.

The once thriving pig farming industry in Bukit Pelanduk collapsed overnight after the Nipah outbreak. About 100 people lost their lives and thousands of pigs were culled.

The cause was initially said to be the Japanese Encephalitis virus but later it was discovered to be a different strain.

The new virus was named Nipah after the Sungai Nipah village in Bukit Pelanduk, where the outbreak was the worst.



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