KUALA LUMPUR: The government will object to Muar member of parliament Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman's legal challenge against the purported withholding of RM730,300 allocated for the constituency last year.
Senior federal counsel Ahmad Hanir Hambaly, who appeared for the Attorney-General's Chambers (A-GC), confirmed this when contacted today.
The former Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (Muda) president and three others — Najib Abu Nawar, Mohd Bakirudin Abdullah and Muhamad Fadzly Bisri — filed the judicial review on April 23 this year.
Najib is the parent-teacher association (PIBG) chairman of a school in Muar, while Bakiruddin and Fadzly are an imam and chairperson from two different surau in the constituency.
They named prime minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and the government as the respondents.
The trio are seeking a court order to set aside a decision by the respondents that halted the balance of RM500,000 from RM1.7 million in total that was supposed to be channelled directly to the Muar public service centre.
The funds were meant for the expenses of welfare programmes for the Muar constituents.
The applicants are also seeking Syed Saddiq's access to the system, myKHAS, to be reinstated. Syed Saddiq has claimed that his access was revoked by the respondents.
Syed Saddiq, in his supporting affidavit, claimed that Muda had, on Sept 10 last year, decided to withdraw its support from the unity government.
He claimed that shortly after the announcement was made, the respondents stopped or revoked the RM500,000 balance in his allocation.
He said the allocation was meant to fix public amenities like schools and surau.
The applicants are also seeking damages, reliefs and costs.
