KUCHING: An opposition candidate, who lost his battle to win the Tamin state seat in the April 16 Sarawak election, has accused Barisan Nasional (BN) of cheating at least 80% of the longhouse chiefs by giving them cheques which were not valid.
According to PKR candidate Mengga Mikui, BN had allegedly given each tuai rumah (longhouse chief) a “baucar bayaran” (payment voucher) attached to a cheque for RM15,000 three days before April 16.
The voucher was alleged to have been prepared by the Chief Minister’s Office and given to the longhouse chiefs.
In the voucher, the name of the tuai rumah was mentioned and his address was given as c/o SIMU (State Implementation Monitoring Unit), Chief Minister’s Department, Wisma Baba Malaysia, Petrajaya, Kuching.
There was also a column for the name of the bank, where they could collect the money. But in this case the name and bank address were not given.
“What is strange is that when the tuai rumah presented the cheque together with the payment voucher to the bank concerned, the cheque was retained by the bank.
“The tuai rumah was told that the cheque either had his name wrongly spelt or his IC was missing, or that there must be some ‘errors’ in the cheque.
“As a result, the cheque was retained by the bank. He was asked by the bank to wait for the next cheque to be issued,” Mengga said.
About 80% of the 220 longhouse chiefs faced a similar problem.
Rampant vote buying
Mengga believes BN used fraudulent ways to defeat him in the polls and “deliberately attempted” to cheat the longhouse chiefs.
“Was this a deliberate attempt to cheat the innocent tuai rumah? Or was this a fraud in order to win the election?” Mengga asked.
He believed that if the tuai rumah was not persistent about the money, it would not be delivered to him.
“I believe that the BN is waiting to use the same cheque for the coming parliamentary election,” he said.
For the first six days of the 10-day campaign, Mengga was said to have been ahead of the BN candidate, Joseph Mauh, in the 60:40 rating.
Three days before polling, all the longhouse chiefs were summoned to the resident’s and district offices where they were alleged to have been given the cheques.
Vote buying was also rampant, Menggat alleged, pointing out that even his own men including his polling and counting agents were bought over.
“I have some documentary evidence of fraud. BN had resorted to fraud apart from money politics and instant projects to win the seat.
“And it is rampant. The BN people know exactly who are BN and PKR supporters. If they are PKR supporters and members, they would be the targets of vote buying.
“If they refused RM100, they would double the money or even triple the amount,” Mengga said.
Banks in cahoots with government
On top of that, the BN candidate was also assisted by government departments such as information department, Kemas, Jasa and Agriculture Department.
Mengga said that he not would bring the rampant vote buying to the court as it is useless.
“We are not sure whether we can win the court case,” he said, nor did he want to lodge police reports about the fraud.
“It is up to the victims to lodge police reports,” he said.
Mengga was defeated by Mauh by a 1,292-vote majority. He polled 3,706 votes compared with 4,998 obtained by Mauh. The constituency has 12,244 voters, of whom 10,698 voters are Ibans.
Meanwhile, a former bank officer conversant with banking laws said that it was obvious that the bank concerned was a party to the fraud.
“Why should the bank retain the cheques?” he asked, adding that the cheques should be returned to the receiver who should in turn approach the Chief Minister’s Office for payment.
“If it is true that the bank is consorting with the Chief Minister’s Office to commit fraud, the bank concerned can lose its licence if it is found out by Bank Negara.
“Somebody should do something about it,” he added.
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