TheNutmegVerses: Of senior citizens and ringgit notes...

"When you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. When you have the law on your side, argue the law. When you have neither, holler."
~ Al Gore

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Extracted from The Sun's Speak Up Column (pg 14) dated Thursday, Nov 4th 2010.

An interesting article which got me thinking whether these guys attended drama school in their past time....ahh, perhaps it's all those debate competitions during schooling where they train you to argue a point until your voice cracks.

....Which reminds me, care to describe "self-strangulation" anyone? (in ref. to TBH's case).

Of senior citizens and ringgit notes

THE Penang state assembly was this week witness to a quaint spectacle of a man entering its gate with a plastic bag full of cash. Never mind that a plastic bag may have been inappropriate as the state was at that moment announcing within the house that plastic bags (at least free bags) would be banned from next year.

The man refused to budge until the chief minister or his executive councillor for Islamic Affairs, Abdul Malik Abul Kassim, emerged to collect the RM23,700. Scooping out some of the cash from the plastic bag, he held up a fistful of the ringgit bills for the benefit of news photographers.

Outside the assembly compound, a group of demonstrators decrying the state leadership for a variety of issues – from price hikes to land displacement – were dispersing with their placards after having shaken the gates of the assembly.

The man, Norman Zahalan, was no ordinary Joe. He was the Penang Umno Youth chief. And he was there to announce that he had money returned by elderly citizens who had been recipients of funds under the state’s Senior Citizens Appreciation Programme.

The seniors, he said, were disgusted to hear that the programme had used proceeds from Penang Turf Club donations. The Turf Club’s revenue came from betting; and betting was "haram" in Islam.

And so, he said, the senior citizens had passed the money paid to them under the programme to Umno to hand back to the state.

Never mind that the state had said that all funds for the senior citizens programme for 2010 had been approved by the state assembly in December last year while the Turf Club donations came this year.

Never mind that the state had announced that a separate account was set aside for the Turf Club donations so that the money would only be channelled to non-Muslims.

Norman insisted that he needed to hand over the cash he was holding. Never mind that he did not have the names of the people who had disowned the money and wanted to return it to the state. Never mind that there was an established procedure and forms to fill for returning funds received from the government.

That he had with him all these bills was serious enough. After all, the senior citizens had come all the way to his Umno centre and placed the money they wished to return into a "tabung" or money box that the party had prepared. The names of the senior citizens were not all taken down. And the amount that each left was also not noted, he said.

And so Norman argued. Take this money now, he told some government officials, and give me a signed statement that you have received the amount. Perhaps feeling indignant and hurt, he shoved an assistant to Deputy Chief Minister (II) Prof Dr P. Ramasamy, who was trying to explain the procedure to him, on the shoulder.

And so, disappointed and frustrated, Norman left, criticising the state leadership of hypocrisy and flip-flopping.

On the one hand, the state had accused Umno of not handing over money it had reportedly collected from the seniors; on the other hand, when the money was brought in, state officials refused to touch it.

"I am entrusted by the senior citizens who want to give back the money," he said. "But not even one single person from the state has come to collect the money … This state government does not want to take responsibility."

That it had been pointed out that the federal government collected RM2.3 billion in 2009 through taxes from the gambling and betting industries was not brought up. Or that the federal government had been asked to show if it kept separate the revenues from gambling and non-gambling activities in different accounts, was also not addressed.

Norman was, however, not disheartened by the officials’ refusal; he said he was thinking of coming back to hand over the cash to Umno representatives in the state assembly. And so he departed, amid the rubbish left behind on the street by his fellow protesters, committed to somehow return the money to the state.

Himanshu is theSun’s Penang bureau chief. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com