'It's like challenging PM's Dept'

PUTRAJAYA: Even as Deputy Home Minister Senator Datuk Wan Ahmad Farid Wan Salleh joined in to take Senator T. Murugiah to task over his questioning of food for ISA detainees, the deputy minister in the Prime Minister's Department was not backing down.

"He (Home Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Syed Albar) told me to take care of my own business. What is my business if not handling the complaints?" he asked.

Murugiah said Syed Hamid's criticism was tantamount to challenging the Prime Minister's Department.

He said he never had any ministers criticising him for investigating public complaints against their ministries.

Speaking to the New Straits Times after visiting Puduraya bus terminal to check on the Hari Raya rush home, Murugiah said his bureau received the most complaints against the Home Ministry, a merger of Internal Security and Home Affairs ministries.

As of May 31, it received 164 complaints, out out which 77 were solved.

Yesterday, Wan Ahmad Farid likened Murugiah's action to "someone challenging other people's ministries".

He said the government had its own way of dealing with complaints.

"Holding a joint press conference with Kok (Seputeh MP Teresa Kok), promising to probe her allegations, is not one of them."

Murugiah had come under fire from Syed Hamid after he took up Kok's complaint that she had been served poor quality food while under ISA detention.

"Although a deputy minister, he is not a member of the cabinet, but he will have his own post-cabinet meeting where he can raise this issue.

"If he is not happy, he can raise this issue with his minister who will then raise it in the weekly cabinet meetings," said Wan Ahmad after launching the Mashaf guideline for the publication of the Quran and Yasin. The Mashaf guideline is the first ever to be published by the ministry to ensure the publications of the holy text are accurate and true.

Wan Ahmad said the ministry would not address the issue until it was brought up through the proper channels.

Meanwhile, Wan Ahmad, in response to MIC Youth chief T. Mohan's tongue-in-cheek statement that the National Registration Department would only look into cases of stateless individuals fast if they were highlighted in the media, said it was never the department's intention to delay any application.

"I believe we can and are in a position to facilitate the issue, but we can't be handling 30,000 cases at once (a number revealed by Mohan)," he said.

- nst