JPA scholarships awarded fairly, defends MP

Putrajaya denies favouring Bumiputera students in awarding JPA scholarships for overseas’ studies. Statistics revealed that distribution has been fair.

KUALA LUMPUR: Putrajaya today denied favouring Bumiputera students and neglecting those of other races when awarding JPA overseas’ scholarships.

Minister in Prime Minister’s Department Shahiddan Kassim disclosed that in 2008, the total number of scholarships handed out were 2,000, of which 1,100 (55%) were given to Bumiputeras and 900 (45%) to non-Bumiputeras.

In 2009, the total number of scholarships were 2,100, of which 1,176 (56%) were awarded to Bumis and 924 (44%) to non-Bumis.

The following year, 1,750 scholarships were given out to 971 (55.4%) Bumis and 779 (44.6%) to non-Bumis.

In 2011, 1,500 scholarships were handed out to 882 (58.8%) Bumis and 618 (41.2%) to non-Bumis. Last year, 300 scholarships were awarded to 180 (60%) Bumis and 120 (40%) to non-Bumis.

“The latest composition of Malaysians show that 67.9% are Bumiputera, 24% are Chinese, Indians are 7.2% and other races make up the remaining 0.9%,” Shahiddan told reporters in Parliament today.

“If you add up 24% and 7.2%, it would amount to 31%. The scholarships awarded to non-Bumis have always been 40% and above.

“Therefore, from that, you can see that it is not true when certain parties accuse the government of favouring the Bumiputeras and neglecting the non-Bumiputeras when awarding scholarships,” he added.

Illogical to spend RM8,500 on electricity bill

On a separate matter, Shahiddan slammed the opposition for misleading the public following the latter’s accusations that taxpayers had forked out about RM8,500 a day for the prime minister’s and deputy prime minister’s electricity bills.

“They cannot tell the difference between the prime minister’s residence, and prime minister’s official complex,” he said.

“The RM8,500 is spent on the complex, which has multi-purpose halls, meeting rooms, civil servants quarters and such,” he explained.

“Therefore, it is very irresponsible of the opposition to say that taxpayers had spent that much money on the PM’s residence. It is also very illogical,” he added.

Yesterday, it was reported that RM2.24 million was spent on electricity at Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s official residence, Seri Perdana, last year.

Meanwhile, RM865,458 was spent on power bills at Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s official residence, Sri Satria, over the same period.

It was also reported that the government had paid RM311,174 and RM99,264 for the water bills of Najib and Muhyiddin.