The late Bill Kayong’s family struggling to make ends meet

Socso payments to Kayong's family, which are supposed to be made monthly, have been delayed several times.

PUTRAJAYA: The late Bill Kayong was not only a politician and a social activist, he was also a husband and father who was the sole breadwinner of his family.

Hence, his death not only brought untold grief to his family, but also left them struggling to make ends meet, Kayong’s wife, Hasykin Hatta said.

Currently unemployed, Hasykin spends most of her time at court seeking justice for Kayong, who was murdered last year. She also has to care for her two children who are both still studying.

“We only live on his Socso payouts,” she said, referring to the Social Security Organisation (Socso) that he contributed to when he was alive.

But these payments to Kayong’s family, which are supposed to be made monthly, have been delayed several times.

Hasykin said she had only received the Socso payments three times this year, with each totalling just over RM1,000.

“We have been going up and down to meet those from Socso, but they keep telling us to wait. How long are we supposed to wait? We need to eat too,” she told reporters outside the Attorney-General’s Chambers here today.

She was there with her children, her lawyer, and Kayong’s brother, Davy, to submit a memorandum addressed to AG Mohamed Apandi Ali.

Asked if she had received any financial assistance from other sources, Hasykin said PKR’s Miri MP Michael Teo had been helping her family out.

In the memorandum FMT sighted, the lawyers representing the family, from NGO Lawyer Kamek For Change, have called for a meeting with Apandi so they can present their arguments on why Kayong’s murder investigation should be re-opened.

They cited, among other things, the prosecution’s failure to produce all the evidence against three of the four murder suspects, which ended in their acquittal.

In acquitting the trio last June, Miri High Court Judge P Ravinthran ruled that the prosecution had failed to furnish evidence linking the suspects to the murder.

Bill, 43, whose Muslim name is Mohd Hasbie Abdullah, was gunned down while seated in his Toyota Hilux vehicle about 8.30am on June 21 last year, at a traffic light intersection at Lutong near the E-Mart supermarket in Jalan Miri-Bintulu.

The killing of the Miri PKR leader was believed to be linked to his work as an advocate of social issues, especially on indigenous rights and land issues.  FMT