Penanti assembly member Norlela Ariffin said she would rather have her salary taken away than see the allocation delayed, as the money was to be used for important community projects.
She said the sum was urgently needed for gotong-royong (community clean-ups), disaster aid, help for the hardcore poor and other emergency funding for the people.
She said Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng should punish assembly members by taking away their salaries, for instance, not by “depriving the people of emergency and community funds”.
“I did not do anything wrong as I did not even receive the invitation card or formal notice to attend the official swearing-in ceremony,” Norlela said when contacted today.
She added that she did not attend the event on Apr 29 due to the instruction of her party superior, Penang PKR chairman Mansor Othman.
She said during the state PKR convention at the SP Arena which started at 2.30pm, Mansor had said those holding state executive council posts could leave for the ceremony at 4.30pm, but assemblypersons were required to stay on.
PKR has three state executive councillors in Penang: Deputy Chief Minister I Mohd Rashid Hasnon, Abdul Malik Abul Kassim and Dr Afif Bahardin.
“I was just following instructions from my party boss,” Norlela said.
“The Penang government should not punish me because I did not even receive an official invitation from the SUK (state secretary’s office).
“I thought only those with positions like the state assembly speaker or deputy speaker, and executive councillors, were invited since I did not receive any invitation.
“Only one officer who claimed to be from protocol (office) called me a day before to ask if I could attend, but I told him that I did not receive any letter or notification.”
Norlela said Rashid, who today co-announced with Lim the “pause” in allocations for those who missed the swearing-in, was aware of Mansor’s directive for all PKR reps to stay.
“If that was the case, Rashid should have told us it was compulsory for us to attend on that day.
“But today, at his press conference with Lim, Rashid was singing a different tune,” Norlela said.
Earlier today, Lim said those who did not attend Governor Abdul Rahman Abbas’ swearing-in for a seventh term on Apr 29 would have the disbursement of their “outright grant” for the third quarter of this year put on hold.
The RM50,000, Lim said, would be given to the absentees once they have provided a proper explanation on why they were not present and a detailed outline of how they wanted to spend the money.
The outright grant, totalling RM200,000 for the full year, is given to state reps in stages on a quarterly basis. This is besides their RM300,000 yearly assemblyperson’s allocation for small infrastructure and repair projects, and community programmes managed by the district office.
Lim also clarified that the punishment was just a “speed-bump” rather than a “freeze” as previously claimed by Norlela.