JOHOR BARU: A Johor state executive councillor has called on Housing and Local Government Minister Nga Kor Ming to apologise to the state government over allegations that its leaders had deliberately scheduled events to coincide with the recent Chinese New Village Expo here.
State health and environment committee chairman Ling Tian Soon dismissed the allegation as baseless and said Johor had multiple official events taking place on the same day across different districts.
“The minister is accusing us without facts - Johor is a large state and we often have many official programmes happening on the same day,” he told a press conference on Thursday (Oct 30).
He said that on Sunday (Oct 26), Johor Mentri Besar Datuk Onn Hafiz Ghazi was in Batu Pahat for a programme and at the same time, state housing and local government committee chairman Datuk Mohd Jafni Md Shukor and state youth, entrepreneur development and cooperatives committee chairman Mohd Hairi Mad Shah each had their own separate official events, which was a normal practice.
“Did I instruct everyone to hold these events? Why only criticise MCA exco representatives? I think the minister’s remarks were inappropriate and he should apologise to the state government for making false accusations,” he added.
A few days ago, Nga had criticised an unnamed Johor MCA executive councillor for allegedly organising another programme that clashed with the expo in a mall here last Sunday (Oct 26), resulting in the absence of Chinese new village chiefs.
At the same press conference in Johor Baru, Nga also criticised MCA’s national and state leadership for allegedly instructing the Johor village chiefs to boycott a briefing by the ministry scheduled for Oct 24, adding that this move harmed the interests of the villagers and deviated from the spirit of public service.
Nga, however, added that 60 of the village chiefs had showed up for the briefing.
On Wednesday (Oct 29), Johor village chiefs liaison committee chairman Sem Teck Sian said there was no instruction given to the 123 Chinese village chiefs in Johor to boycott the briefing organised by the Housing and Local Government Ministry.
Meanwhile, Ling further added that if the party’s leadership had ordered a boycott of the briefing, there would not have been some 60 chiefs present.
He also urged the federal government to work sincerely with the state and grassroots leaders to support new village development.
