MTUC to know its fate next month

The Registrar of Society (ROS) in Selangor is expected to complete its probe against the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) over mismanagement complaints by early January.

This is according to MTUC president Abdul Halim Mansor who met Selangor ROS director Nurul Azhar Husin earlier today to explain why MTUC should not be deregistered.

In a press conference held later at the MTUC headquarters, Halim said MTUC has urged the ROS to expedite its investigation against the union.

"(ROS) said it will do its best in (completing the investigation) in one or two weeks," he said.

"At this stage, MTUC is still being suspended temporarily." 

For the time being, he said, MTUC is barred from holding its general council meeting but allowed to carry out welfare work for its staff and continue representing workers in court and government agencies.

Despite this, Halim (above) pointed out that it is unable to carry out welfare work that involves the issuance of money at this stage as its financial secretary stepped down on Nov 9.

There is no second person in MTUC who is authorised to sign cheques as required in its constitution, he said.

According to Halim, the only way out for MTUC is to elect a new financial secretary in the next general council meeting, which was originally slated on Dec 29, but has now been called off.

In case ROS can make a decision in early January, he said, MTUC will still need to give a 12-week notice for its members to attend the general council meeting.

He said the earliest general council meeting can be held in March or April.

At this point, he feared MTUC may not be able to disperse the compensation payment to 23 workers as accorded by the courts.

"The signature of the financial secretary is important, without it, we cannot issue cheques, or settle power and water bills, if (we don't pay) we have to carry water (buckets) ourselves," he said.

In a statement recently, the ROS said they received a complaint on July 2 about mismanagement in MTUC and opened an investigation the following month.

The ROS said on Dec 18 that it had issued a notice giving the MTUC 30 days to explain why it should not be deregistered.

The ROS later confirmed that it had suspended the MTUC to ensure that no other rules were broken by the MTUC pending an explanation.

Last week, Sarawak MTUC secretary Andrew Lo made a serious claim that the MTUC had not convened a full general council meeting ever since the elections of the current top officials in 2016.

Another union source also told Malaysiakini that the MTUC leadership had, in fact, received a show-cause letter from the ROS about two months ago for its failure to conduct meetings as prescribed. - Mkini