SHAH ALAM, 27 Dec: The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, should publicly apologise to the people following the exposure by PERKASA that the non-governmental organisation (NGO) was funded by Putrajaya.
The Member of Parliament for Seputeh, Teresa Kok, said that if indeed Najib is holding strong to the ‘1Malaysia’ chant, he should feel guilty for misusing taxpayers’ money.
She said that taxpayers’ money was used to fund PERKASA, which is known with extreme provocation on racial issues and religious harmony among people of different races.
“Since time immemorial, there was talk that PERKASA was financed by Umno to carry out programmes by the extremist group. Eventually, the truth has emerged when Umno and the Central Government has all this while been protecting PERKASA and giving them a lot of money,” she said on her Facebook page.
She said this in response to the exposure by the PERKASA Secretary-General, Syed Hassan Syed Ali, that three key government agencies, involving the National Security Council (NSC), the national Civics Bureau (BTN) and the Department of Special Affairs (JASA), has been channelling assistance to the organisation for the success of their programmes.
However, Hassan said that the assistance provided by government agencies to the organisation is not much compared to efforts carried out to attract the support of Malays to Barisan Nasional (BN).
The statement was issues in response to the statement by a member of the Umno Supreme Council, Tan Sri Isa Samad, who is not confident with the ability of PERKASA to replace Umno in caring for the welfare of Malays.
Meanwhile, a wing party of BN, GERAKAN, also demanded explanation behind the involvement of key institutes of the government in PERKASA programmes.
The GERAKAN Youth Chief, Tan Keng Liang, said that BN has only weakened itself when it moved to channel funds to ‘pest’ groups like PERKASA.
He said that the action has alienated many voters from BN, including urban Malays and that the right wing Malay pressure group’s work is also contrary to the objectives of BN.
