Tuesday 14 September 2010

ROS WILL INVESTIGATE PKR PENAMPANG



THE Registrar of Society (RoS) will be investigating complaints filed by the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) Penampang division over alleged irregularities in its conducts, including the legality of the appointment of its current Acting Chief, Dr Roland Chia, which was said to be not in accordance with Party Constitution.

Disclosing this was Bernard Solibun, who is also the Vice Chairman 1 for PKR Penampang. He claimed to have received an official reply from the RoS here stating that they will be investigating the complaints lodged by him on Monday.

Solibun claimed that if based on the Party Constitution, he should be the rightful office bearer after its former chief Dr Edwin Bosi left for DAP, and not Dr Roland, who is only an appointed Vice Chairman. He explained that this is because the Party Constitution clearly stated that the division chief must be someone who is duly elected by the members and not someone who is appointed.

This thus gives rise to the question whether it is proper for Dr Roland to convene the coming Annual General Meeting (AGM) cum election for the division on this 18 September.

He noted that the current dilemma in PKR Penampang traces back to the AGM held on 24 Mar 2007 at the Pagansakan Multi-purpose Hall in Inobong. Also present at the occasion were Datuk Dr Jeffrey Kitingan and several officials from the State PKR liaison office. The AGM was a smooth one as the two groups of contenders had agreed to set aside their differences for the party’s sake.

Unfortunately, several days later, the AGM and election results were challenged by the camp led by its then deputy chief, Joe Sulaiman due to reasons best known to the group. A complaint was subsequently lodged with the then Sabah PKR chief, Hj Ansari Abdullah.

A fresh AGM was then conducted on 16 May 2007 at the Donggongon Library and it was monitored by several officials from PKR headquarters.

Unfortunately, the minutes of the said AGM and the election results were later reported missing and thus were not submitted to the ROS. What was submitted were the questionable election results of 24 March 2007, which remained questionable till today. A police report was lodged last month over the files containing the said minutes of meetings that were missing from its divisional office.

Solibun also claimed that ever since Dr Roland took over the helm of PKR Penampang from Dr Edwin, its administration and affairs were not properly conducted and were against Party Constitution.

“For example, each time when he (Dr Roland) calls for a meeting, it was not enough quorum hence there was no minutes taken, except for taking of notes by the Secretary,” he cited.

He also questioned the legality of the Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) conducted by Dr Roland sometime in 2009, claiming that it was unconstitutional as the validity of some of the members who attended it was questionable.

When contacted later, the divisional secretary Franky Lobinjang concurred with Solibun that Dr Roland’s appointment as the Acting Chief for Penampang PKR was unconstitutional and invalid.

He also claimed that recently Dr Roland had sent out the notice for the coming AGM without his knowledge and only to those members who are aligned to him.

Besides this, he also claimed to have received many complaints and objections from its members over the proposed venue of the coming AGM which will be conducted at a residential home in a housing estate located along Jalan Penampang, which is deemed inappropriate and inconvenient to the members especially citing parking problem.

“And until today, there was also no confirmation on who are the candidates for the coming election following the recent nomination exercise. By right, this should have been promptly and properly informed to the members by displaying the name list for the candidates, as there was supposed to be a three-day objection period for the members to object, if any of the candidates is found to be unqualified to contest,” he elaborated.

It was reliably learnt that there will be a four-corner fight in the coming divisional election. The four contestants are Dr Roland, Innocent Makajil, Brett Chua and Darell Liking. Dr Roland is a practising dentist, Makajil is the former District Chief for Penampang, Chua is a businessman whose family owned and runs the CKS chain of supermarkets, while Liking is a practicing lawyer.

Dr Roland could not be reached at press time for comment.

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