Questions still unanswered by Devamany

March 9, 2012, from Gopal Thirumalai, via e-mail

I thank M Vivekananthan, the aide to Datuk Devamany, for his prompt reply to my letter which was published in FMT. It was indeed a pleasant surprise to receive a response from a political leader. However, the main issues highlighted by me were not answered.

• Why didn’t the MOE instruct JKR to demolish and build a new building when JKR announced that the current building was not safe as early as 2002?

• Why must we include politicians into the picture when they don’t have the power to instruct MOE, unless they are from the Education Ministry itself?

• Why must Indians always refer to MIC all the time when it comes to Tamil School as we don’t pay tax to MIC but paying to BN? Isn’t it supposed to be the duty of the respective government departments to provide the basic infrastructure to all Malaysians, irrespective of race?

• The appropriate person from a political party to handle this situation is Satim Diman, the Sri Serdang assemblyman. Why has he not bothered to visit the school until today? We know that funds are allocated for all state and parliamenta representatives from BN, to be used in their constituencies and what happened to that fund?

• With or without the involvement of Datuk Devamany, the situation would have remained the same as the PIBG, the School Board and the headmistress are more than capable of handling the situation. So, did he do anything extra until today? The answer is no. This is what we call ‘Wayang Kulit’. You arrive at the scene, question everyone and brag about how much the government had allocated for Tamil School (and will never provide actual breakdown), conduct a meeting but in the end, the situation remains the same as everything must go through the standard protocols with a lot of red tapes.

I still have the video clip taken on that day when Datuk Devamany mentioned about hundreds of millions of ringgit allocated for Tamil Schools. Can you please show us the breakdown? Which school received how much, when, the purpose and the status now?

Please leave the politics out of schools. We do not want any interference from any political parties as the maintenance, management and administration of school matters are beyond their scope. We just want the respective departments to do their duty without practising any discrimination.

The last thing we want to do is to beg for funds from politicians and watch all their dramas. For God’s sake, it’s our hard earned money. As tax paying citizens, we have all the right to demand explanations on how our tax money is spent.