'We are untouchable!' says Ronnie Liu

SELANGOR State executive councillor Ronnie Liu (pic) has scoffed at suggestions that the method of payment for some community programmes in Sungai Pelek involving his special assistant, Wong Chuan How, is questionable.

Liu, who was responding to queries whether it was procedurally right for cheques meant for the programmes be made under Wong’s name, said this method had been “used for the past 50 years”.

“My special assistant will put in an estimate (of cost) for a particular programme, and this is verified by me and sent to the district officer (DO),” he told me last night. “If the DO says okay, they will issue us a cheque. On our side, we have to furnish the DO with payment vouchers, receipts as well as photos of the event later.”

Liu said there was nothing wrong with the method as this had been the practice by the previous State government as well. The Pandamaran State assemblyman said beneficiaries that are big organisations would be issued cheques directly by the DO.

“For example, if St John Ambulance were to ask for RM30,000, the DO would issue cheques directly to it. But alternatively, the same cheque can also be issued to our account and we would later issue a cheque with the same amount of allocation to St John.”

Liu said there were, however, instances when the cheques were deposited by the DO into the constituency’s special account.

“These are cases when the recipients are small-time traders who do not have bank accounts. They can be nasi lemak sellers and curry puff traders who provide food during majlis ramah mesra (meet-thepeople) sessions.

“There are also cases whereby people who provide us with PA systems and canopies are paid in cash and in these cases, the cheques received from the DO to carry out a programme would subsequently be banked into a current account, after which payment in cash would be made to the beneficiaries.”

Liu cited a case of an old woman who had asked for some contribution, as she had run out of rice at her home she shared with two physically challenged children, as an example of when cash was given out.

“You cannot expect us to issue a cheque to her and this is why cash is given out.” Liu said beneficiaries of any form of payment would have to sign a payment voucher and a photo of the recipient would also be taken. Asked why the cheques were not issued in his name, Liu said it was for the sake of convenience.

“If it is issued under my name, I would have to do all the running around. I am an exco member as well as the State assemblymen for Pandamaran, I don’t have the time to run around making payments to beneficiaries. I can’t be going around ordering canopies whenever there is a function and that is why I have to delegate this task to Wong. Everything is substantiated and documented. This is normal procedure! We are untouchable!”

Liu said some of the programmes in the list put up in the blog t4tbh.blogspot.com were irrelevant as there were projects conducted by Umno.

“Why would Pakatan Rakyat want to support any programmes carried out by Umno?” (MM)