KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah government is sowing confusion and disarray in their handling of the case of the illegal water department director that will demoralise the public service and adversely affect public service performance.
In a statement Datuk Yong Teck Lee said on one hand, the Sabah Government and Datuk Amarjit Singh have chosen to appeal against the High Court ruling (that the appointment of director of the Water Department is illegal), saying that the judge had erred in law.
“This means that the Government and Datuk Amarjit said that the original appointment of the director was valid in law.”
But, on the other hand, Datuk Amarjit, in another affidavit, said that the mistake of his appointment on 1 August 2018 has been corrected and the he has been given a new appointment, he stated.
“On 9 October 2019, the KK High Court had declared that appointment of Datuk Amarjit as Director of the Sabah Water Department on 1 August 2018 is illegal as it contravened Section 3 of the Sabah Water Supply Enactment 2003,” Yong who is the co-plaintiff in the case of Yong Teck Lee & Pang Thou Chung vs Amarjit Singh and State Government of Sabah .
“As he and the government have refused to abide by the court ruling, I had taken an injunction application to stop him from exercising the statutory powers under the same Enactment.”
“Indeed, I was left with no option but to take out an injunction application when it surfaced that the illegal director had, on the day after the court judgement, issued a letter of intent to a newly formed company which was selected to develop the proposed billion-ringgit Papar dam. Such actions of an illegal officer exposed the government to potential liabilities in the future,” he stated.
According to him, in defending his injunction application, Datuk Amarjit had revealed that he was given a letter of appointment as “Technical Advisor” at the State Secretary Office of the Chief Minister’s Department on 30 October 2019 but backdated to 11 October 2019. Three days later, on October 14, he was transferred to the Water Department as Director.
According to Yong, this was a bizarre exercise to frustrate the ruling of the High Court on 9 October 2019 that his (Amarjit) appointment as director was illegal.
“The so-called transfer to the Water Department as Director was nothing but a blatant act to circumvent Section 3 of the Enactment which stipulated that the Director shall be appointed from the Sabah public service,” he added.
For the government to make Datuk Amarjit, a Parti Warisan member and former party official, a public servant on Friday (October 11) before making him a director on the following Monday (October 14) is scandalous and shows the utter disregard for the law by this State administration.
Was Amarjit able to perform miracles over that one weekend by mastering the Civil Service General Orders, Treasury Instructions, Disciplinary Board Regulations, Financial Procedures Act, Panduan Pengurusan Pejabat and attended the Program Transformasi Minda (2013)? Did he pass any civil service examinations which are necessary for public servants?
“The question in everybody’s mind is, is Datuk Amarjit really that indispensable as the Director of the Water department? Why is the government bending over backwards and breaking public service regulations just to put a political appointee as head of a technical department? Why is the so-called reappointment of the director clouded in secrecy?”
Sabah government disrespects the rule of law
The actions of the Sabah government show that it disrespects the rule of law. “The rule of law is upheld when the principles of transparency, accountability, good governance and the public interest are guarded,” said the Bar Council president Abdul Fareed Abdul Gafoor yesterday in commenting on the release of the audio recordings concerning an ex-PM.
“In this case, the defendants, Amarjit and the Sabah Government, are not transparent in their non-disclosure of the purported re-appointment of Amarjit. They did not show accountability by keeping the new appointment under wraps. It is not good governance to insist on appointing a non-public servant to head a technical department. The new appointment is an attempt to frustrate the High Court ruling and to circumvent the Water Supply Enactment 2003. This is definitely not good governance. Hence, the rule of law is not upheld.”
Fresh legal action to put “new” appointment under judicial spotlight
When the government sets bad example by not upholding the rule of law, the public service will fall into disarray and the state and people will suffer from bad governance, Yong opined.
“Therefore, in pursuing good governance and ensuring the rule of law by the government, I have instructed my lawyers to initiate public interest legal action to challenge the validity of the purportedly new or re-appointment of the illegally appointed director of the Water Department.”-pr/BNN
