DAP cool in face of looming ROS deadline

DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said his party will submit its annual report to the Registrar of Societies in good time before the 60-day deadline expires in the middle of this month.

The party held elections for its central executive committee in mid-December last year, an exercise that was marred by atechnical glitchthat was only discovered weeks after the poll.

A firm of international auditors, called in by the party, vetted the vote and pronounced the exercise untainted by fraud.  

Sundry dissidents have called for a fresh poll but this has been rejected as unnecessary. 

This prompted ROS Director-General Abdul Rahman Othman to comment publicly on the matter last month, thus departing from the pro forma neutrality that his office usually exercises.
     
This has raised anxiety in some quarters but Lim was unperturbed when approached on the sidelines of a function he officiated in Balik Pulau yesterday, in his capacity as chief minister of Penang.    

“No worries, we will submit within the deadline,” he said.

Launching the first state-run dialysis centre at the Penang Municipal Council premises in Balik Pulau, he lauded the initiative as an example of how a partnership between the public and private sectors can benefit the needy.

Five haemodialysis machines have been installed at the centre and will be operational once the Health Ministry has approved the licences for their operation.

The machines have a capacity to treat 30 patients a day. The rate per session that patients will be charged is RM30, following a federal subsidy of RM50 and a state subsidy of RM30. 

Lim said the rate compares favourably with what is being charged in the private sector where patients could pay anything from RM150-200 per session.

“The Penang government is proud to have worked out this arrangement with partners in the private sector to provide subsidised care for kidney patients,” remarked Lim.

‘Prevention is best’

He also said his government would like to establish state-run dialysis centres in every district, but that this would take time.

“Even this initiative was five years in the making because of the procedures that are involved but persistence by the state government and its private sector partner has issued in a start here in Balik Pulau,” said Lim.

“If we are returned to power, we will replicate this initiative in every district in the state but I must emphasise that in the matter of health care, prevention is better than cure.

“Therefore our folks would be better advised to watch their intake of sugar and thus avoid kidney failure from rampant diabetes.”