SUBANG JAYA: Penang Chief Minister II P Ramasamy should not jump the gun and continue being ignorant, said Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, P. Waytha Moorthy.
He said this in response to Ramasamy's allegation on the RM100 million allocation for the Indian community in Budget 2019, in which he claimed Waytha had not been transparent with regards to its funding.
In a statement today, Ramasamy claimed the funds had been channelled to individuals and organisations that "had no intrinsic interest in the upliftment of the Indian community".
However, Waytha disagreed with the claim and said the funds were dispersed through the Malaysian Indian Transformation Unit (Mitra), which were already published on its website.
"I think we are the only unit that actually displays who receives what and how much. How much more transparent can I be?
"He (Ramasamy) is misinformed and he is ignorant. We belong to the same government.
“He can always pick up the phone and speak to me," he said at the Roundtable Dialogue on Orang Asli Children and Schooling here today.
In his statement, Ramasamy criticised Waytha for not attending a meeting by the Pakatan Harapan Indian Malaysian caucus.
He also said that the minister was invited to present information to the Elected Indian Representatives Council of Pakatan Harapan (Eircph) but had failed to do so.
Waytha, however, said that he should not be judged based on his absence from one meeting when he had attended previous meetings.
The senator also told Ramasamy to be patient and that he would organise a meeting in the next two to three weeks to provide an update on the matter.
"I understand the frustrations of the community that the Indians have been marginalised for far too long.
“With the change of government, everybody is anxious and want things to happen immediately.
“The money is being dispersed to entities to carry out social-economic programs and we are continuing our work but it takes time to work things out,” he said.