Sarawak PKR Youth have questioned how Sarawak is third on the list of states with the largest population of poor residents after 33 years of Abdul Taib Mahmud's rule as chief minister.

Its representative Iswardy Morni said that this is despite having RM22 billion in the state reserves.

Citing Department of Statistics data, he said that although Sarawak is third behind Sabah and Kelantan, the absolute number of poor is much higher.

This is because at three percent of the population, the number of poor people in Sarawak is more than 66,000.

This is compared to Kelantan, where poor residents make up three percent of the state's population or about 51,000 people.

"People are proud that Selangor has reserves of RM3 billion but Sarawak has RM22 billion in reserves and still fail to support its people," Iswardy ( above ) said.

"So I call upon the incoming chief minister Adenan Satem to address this as a priority and not to give excuses like Sarawak being too large," he added.

Speaking at the PKR headquarters yesterday, Iswardy also urged Baitulmal to make public its accounts in the state so as to explain why so many of Sarawak's poor are left unaided.

"They easily collect zakat from us, but are slow when it comes to dispersing the funds. I would like to remind them that this is responsibility measured by Allah in the afterlife," he said.

Corruption report against Islamic affairs minister

In a related matter, Iswardy lodged a corruption report against Sarawak state assistant minister on Islamic affairs Daud Abdul Rahman over the awarding of a state building to a company reportedly owned by him.

"We want Daud to explain the matter...We have referred the matter to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and will be submitting the supporting documents," he said.

Referring to a Sarawak Report article on the matter published last year, he said that the whistleblower website had mistakenly reported Daud as being on the Baitulmal board.

According to Iswardy, Daud is actually on the board of the Lembaga Amanah Kebajikan Masjid Negeri, a state entity which administers the state’s mosques as is governed under the charitable trust ordinance.

According to Companies Commission Malaysia documents published by Sarawak Report, Daud is a majority-owner of Eastbourne Corporation Sdn Bhd.

In May 2013, the company was awarded a RM253 million award to build Baitul Makmur II by the Council of which Daud is a board member, contractor registry website CIBD shows.

However, a Bursa Malaysia filing in June 2013 revealed that Eastbourne subcontracted the project to public-listed company Hong Seck Lee for RM288 million or RM35 million less.

This is not the first time the issue has been brought to MACC's attention. However last year's report alleges that the state assistant minister had abused Baitulmal.

In response, Daud said that he would cooperate with the probe.