Ipoh council to go ahead with meeting - The Star

IPOH: April 23, 2008

The City Council will go ahead with its full board meeting tomorrow despite claims by Barisan Nasional councillors that they have quit their posts.

Datuk Bandar Datuk Mohamad Rafiai Moktar said the meeting would go on as scheduled at 10am unless the required quorum was not met.

“At least half the board needs to be present,” he told reporters after presenting lucky draw prizes to assessment ratepayers here yesterday.

The full board consists of 22 appointed councillors, a state government representative and the Datuk Bandar.

Despite claims from parties within the Barisan that their representatives had already quit as councillors, Mohamad Rafiai said he had, to date, only received the resignation letters of six MCA councillors.

It had been reported that councillors from MCA and Gerakan had quit while those from Umno had been urged to do the same “as a matter of principle”.

Of the 22 councillors, eight are from Umno, three each from the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) and Gerakan, and two from MIC. The six MCA members had already resigned.

On their allowances, Mohamad Rafiai said councillors had been paid till the end of March, adding that those who quit would no longer be getting them.

Education, Local Government, Housing and Public Transport Committee chairman Nga Kor Ming said that with the exception of the 95 MCA councillors (including at district levels) who had already resigned, the other Barisan councillors have until Friday to inform the state of their decision.