Kelantan PAS has denied that the state government had withheld reimbursements owed to 75 PKR political appointees in the state.

State PAS secretary Che Abdullah Mat Nawi said the allegation by PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail was unreasonable.

“We have an allocation for small development plans in every state constituency.

“The political appointees are only eligible to a monthly allowance and there were no arrears, so the other issues don’t arise either,” he was quoted as saying in Utusan Malaysia today.

He said the Kelantan government allocates RM200,000 each year for each of the 45 state constituencies in Kelantan, whereas allowances for PKR political appointees in the state had been fully settled.

Meanwhile, when asked to respond to Che Abdullah’s comments, PKR deputy president Mohamed Azmin Ali claimed ignorance over the situation in Kelantan.

“I don’t know. We will get feedback from the Kelantan leadership soon and we will advise accordingly to protect everyone’s interests,” he told reporters when met at the Parliament building today.

On May 16, PKR’s political bureau had instructed all of the party’s political appointees in the PAS-led state to resign, following the termination of the cooperation between the two parties.

Wan Azizah had given them until the end of July to resign. However, none of the appointees had turned in their resignation letters after the deadline had lapsed.

On Tuesday, she explained that the appointees were still waiting for their reimbursements to be paid by their state government, as they had been providing aid to their respective constituencies out of their own pockets.

Kelantan PKR chief Ab Aziz Ab Kadir had reportedly said that they were not disobeying the party directive, but needed time to resolve some issues before resigning.

For the record, PAS representatives still remain in the Selangor government led by PKR’s Azmin, despite the end of formal ties between PKR and PAS.

Additional reporting by Anne Muhammad