Parti Tenaga Rakyat Sarawak (Teras) president William Mawan Ikom and his secretary-general Sylvester Entri are spreading lies about their membership in BN by taking advantage of the interim measure by Chief Minister Adenan Satem to allow them to remain as ministers and cabinet members until the next state election even though they are not in BN,” said Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP) deputy president Anthony Nogeh.

“Their claims are mischievous and blatant lies,” said Nogeh in a statement in response to Mawan’s and Entri’s claims that Teras is in the BN.

“There is no mention of Teras joining the BN,” said Nogeh, who is the MP for Mas Gading.

Mawan, who is Social Development Minister, together with three Assistant Ministers namely Peter Nansian (Tasik Biru assemblyperson), Entri (Marudi), Rosey Yunus (Bekenu) and another elected representative Paulus Gumbang (Batu Danau), resigned from SPDP and joined the newly-formed Teras in May this year.

Teras’ membership application to join BN is strongly opposed by SPDP, but Mawan and Entri have been telling longhouse folk in Niah and Marudi that they were already in BN.

“They are taking advantage of the interim measure or arrangement (by the chief minister) to hoodwink the people into thinking that Teras is part of the state BN.

“There is no way Teras can be admitted into the state BN as its admission must be agreed upon by all BN component parties. SPDP, Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) and Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) have declared their stand against Teras’ admission,” he said.

“So Mawan and his company should stop this nonsense,” Nogeh added.

Referring to Teras’ claim that it wanted the five assemblypersons to be re-nominated to stand in the next state election, Nogeh said that they had every right to defend their seats, but certainly not under BN.

SPDP had vowed to stand its ground together with PRS and SUPP not to give up any of their BN allocated seats in the next state election.

“An attempt to force us to give way to Teras in the seats allocation will tear up the BN agreement and cause disunity in the ruling coalition, Nogeh warned.

On Entri’s claim that he and Mawan had reconciled after their bitter clashes when they were both in SPDP, Nogeh said that their so-called reconciliation was just for the sake of their political survival.

Mawan, who was then the SPDP president, sacked Entri in November 2011 after he declared publicly he had no confidence in Mawan’s leadership.

Also sacked at that time were Nansian, Rosey and Paulus. All of them are now in Teras.

“How can they take back all those nasty things they said about each other just a few years ago?” Nogeh asked.