Meet the People programme in Perak bearing fruit

Compiled by ALLISON LAI, FAZLEENA AZIZ and R. ARAVINTHAN

THE Hari Bertemu Pelanggan (Meet the People) programme organised by the Perak government has been the best approach to quickly resolve issues faced by the people, Harian Metro reported.

Since the first series of the programme was held at the Indera Mulia Stadium in Ipoh in February last year, face-to-face meetings attended by state government leaders and officials from departments and agencies as well as local councils had allowed the people to channel their problems to the related parties.

The programme also saw Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Saarani Mohamad and exco members going down to investigate complaints from the public.

Chief Assistant Secretary to the State Government (corporate division) Anita Amri said that based on the number of complaints received from Series 1 to 8, 1,013 out of 1,121 or 90% of the complaints were resolved.

“One hundred and eight more complaints or 10% are currently being looked into,” she said, adding that during the Mesra Meet the People programme on Oct 12, another 187 complaints were received.

She also said some of the complaints that have not been resolved require the attention of the Federal Government.

“The highest number of complaints involved land issues, revolving around the status of applications and reasons for rejections,” Anita said.

Other complaints include stray animals, damage to public infrastructure, financial aid and university scholarship applications.

> The decision to embrace Islam by actress Angeline Tan did not come easy, especially when it came to explaining to her children, Berita Harian reported.

She said her children raised various questions even though they knew of her relationship with fellow actor and director Sabri Yunus three years ago.

“One of them is why I suddenly wanted to embrace Islam. So, I explained that this is one of the conditions I need to fulfil before getting married.

“They calmed down and accepted my decision,” she said.

Last Saturday, Sabri and Tan married in a private ceremony.

The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.