Dr M: ROS said Pejuang application okay, but it needs to refer to the minister

 

Pejuang has fulfilled all requirements to ensure that its application for registration as a political party under the Registrar of Societies (ROS) would be approved, but ROS said it had to refer the application to the minister in charge, Pejuang pro-tem chairperson Dr Mahathir Mohamad said.

The former prime minister said that in the last meeting between the ROS and Pejuang secretary Amiruddin Hamzah, who is the Kubang Pasu MP, the ROS said that the party's document submission was okay.

"I'd like to state that (the party) secretary Amiruddin had often met with ROS.

"In the last meeting, ROS informed that everything was okay, but it had to refer the application to the minister.

“It means that the administration process has become a political matter…why refer to the minister? It's not compulsory according to the law,” Mahathir told the media in a press conference, without mentioning the name of the related minister.

ROS is under the purview of Home Minister Hamzah Zainudin.

Yesterday, ROS informed Pejuang, by way of a letter emailed to it, that its application for registration was rejected.

The nonagenarian formed Pejuang in August last year with its focus to battle corruption. Mahathir had said that his party was not aligned to any political coalition.

The new party was formed after Mahathir and several MPs were expelled from Muhyiddin Yassin-led Bersatu which left Pakatan Harapan in February to form a new government with BN, PAS, Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS), Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), as well as former PKR deputy president Mohamed Azmin Ali's faction.

Meanwhile, Amiruddin said ROS had informed that the reason for the rejection is because the application was disorganised and that the rejection was made based on provision 7(e) of the Societies Act 335.

"We are of the view that we had fulfilled all the conditions, in fact, we had met ROS and it suggested an amendment in the party constitution.

"We resubmitted the application, but this is the result that we received from ROS," he said.

KL-Singapore HSR not important

In a separate matter, when asked to comment on the termination of Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High-Speed Rail (HSR) project, Mahathir stressed that it's not an important project.

"I don't think this is an important project. We have to wait for another 10 to 20 years (for the project completion).

"And the system (rail) has to cover a wider distance for us to get the savings in terms of time. (for this project) it only covers 230km…[..] the cost to build HSR is about RM80 billion - we'll never get back our money," he said.

In an interview with Astro Awani recently, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mustapa Mohamed had reiterated that the project's original model, which would have required tenders to be jointly conducted with Singapore, was too costly.

The decision to abort the project also came after Malaysia's financial position had been impacted by the Covid-19 outbreak, Mustapa had said. - Mkini