Gagasan Rakyat division youth urges PKR to replace Pensiangan chief

KOTA KINABALU: The youth wing of Nabawan division Parti Gagasan Rakyat Sabah (Gagasan Rakyat) has called on the PKR leadership to replace its Pensiangan chief Raymond Ahuar.

This was following Raymond’s move of filing a report with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) against Nabawan assemblyman Datuk Abdul Ghani Mohd Yassin for a land application under his own name.

“We are made aware of Raymond filing the complaint at Keningau MACC office on Thursday (Aug 24) against the Nabawan assemblyman.

“However, this land application issue has been settled a few months ago and even been explained during the state assembly sitting (in May), which was reported by the media,” said Nabawan Gagasan Rakyat Youth chief Ag Azuan Pg Hamzah in a statement here on Friday (Aug 25).

“The Pensiangan PKR chief (Raymond) has tarnished the name and reputation of the Nabawan elected representative; he made the MACC report without looking into details of the issue.

“Therefore, we urge the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) component parties’ leadership and the unity government to reject the Pensiangan PKR chief’s claims.

“We also urge the PKR grassroots in Pensiangan and the party central leadership to reject Raymond so he can be replaced with someone more qualified, as he has underperformed and he showed no sense of consideration or unity during his service,” he added.

Earlier, a news portal reported that Raymond, when filing the MACC report, had claimed that Abdul Ghani exploited his position as the Sabah Land Development Board (SLDB) chairman to expedite approval for the land application.

Back in May, Abdul Ghani was quoted saying he was approached by community leaders and villagers at that area to make the application under his name after they learned of many companies and individuals outside Nabawan who were interested in applying for the plot of land.

They fear the land will fall into the hands of outsiders and have plans to establish a cooperative for a livestock project there in a joint-venture with SLDB which will take time.

Abdul Ghani said his name on the land was supposed to be temporary and it was on the condition that the land’s ownership will be handed back to the villagers involved after the setting up of the cooperative.