KUALA LUMPUR (May 3): Muar Member of Parliament (MP) Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman is seeking a judicial review against Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and the government over RM730,300 in allocations for his constituency.

The government had stopped the allocation payments to his constituency since Sept 10, 2023, according to the cause papers filed by Syed Saddiq and his lawyers Messrs Lim Wei Jiet on April 23 and sighted by The Edge.

In his affidavit of support, Syed Saddiq claimed that RM500,000 out of a total RM2.0 million previously allocated by the government had not been paid to his constituency for expenditure on charitable programmes, welfare of the constituents and natural disaster aid. The Muar constituency had received RM1.5 million up until Sept 10, 2023, he noted.

Further, a separate allocation of RM230,300 applied for and approved under the MyKhas allocation payment system had also been cancelled by the government. The allocation — to fund renovations of schools and mosques among others in the constituency — were part of the government’s “Projek Mesra Rakyat”.

In this judicial review application, Syed Saddiq is seeking a reinstatement to the MyKhas system and that the government reinstates the allocations, among others.

Syed Saddiq said that the payments had stopped on Sept 10 last year because his party, the Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (Muda), withdrew its support for the Unity Government in protest against the withdrawal of all 47 charges faced by Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

Syed Saddiq said that since then, the remainder of the allocations were not paid, and even his access as an MP to the MyKhas system to apply for allocations for Muar was revoked.

He also said that he had met with Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof on two occasions about this matter, but the payments have yet to be received as of early April of this year.

Syed Saddiq also cited MPs who were formerly with the opposition bloc but threw their support behind Anwar and received their allocations.

Those he named were Datuk Indera Suhaili Abdul Rahman (Labuan), Zahari Kechik (Jeli), Mohd Azizi Abu Naim (Gua Musang), Datuk Iskandar Dzulkarnain Abdul Khalid (Kuala Kangsar) and Datuk Dr Zulkafperi Hanapi (Tanjong Karang).

“The decisions act to punish the people and voters of Muar, solely because their constituency is not in the government bloc,” Syed Saddiq said. The “punishment” denies his constituency’s development and the welfare programmes important to the constituency, he added.