Najib's BR1M letter an offence, claims Sarawak PKR

A Sarawak PKR leader has accused caretaker Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak of committing a serious corrupt practice when he sent his letter to all recipients of 1Malaysia People’s Aid (BR1M) of RM500, RM250 and RM100 using public facilities.

“Not only has he abused his power as a caretaker prime minister by using public facilities, he is also committing a crime under the Election Offences Act by promising the BRIM recipients of RM1,000 if BN remains in power,” said Sarawak PKR vice-chairperson See Chee How.

See (left), who is the Batu Lintang State assemblyman, was commenting on the letter Najib sent to all BR1M recipients as well as those who received special assistance of RM250 and RM100.

In Najib’s letter, he mentioned that BRIM showed that the government was caring in trying to alleviate the costs of living of the people.

In the letter, the prime minister also proposed to give more to the people.

“Najib is openly abusing the government’s facilities in order to induce voters to vote for Barisan,” said See, pointing out that Najib was really going back on his words.

“He is making use of whatever the government machinery or public faculties - the postage, the list of recipients from the Inland Revenue Board and the stationary. All these cost money - the public’s money,” he said.

He said that several million copies of the letter had been sent to all the BRIM recipients throughout the country just for the simple reason of influencing the voters.

“I do not know how much it will cost to send million copies of the letter. It could cost the public a colossal amount.

“We want Najib to give us the answer,” said Chee.

The PKR leader said that it is very embarrassing for a caretaker prime minister to do that, but Najib did not know how to be embarrassed.

“How can you make use of the state’s facilities to do campaigning for Barisan Nasional? This is really bad,” he said, pointing out that the opposition is studying the matter seriously.

See said: “I think there are good grounds to say that Barisan Nasional is openly carrying out a corrupt practice under the Election Offences Act.

“They are talking about threats and making promises in order to influence voters to vote for a particular party or person,” he said.

“Now Najib is doing this. To me this is a very good ground for an election petition later,” he said.