Four Amanah members sworn in as Penang state constituency coordinators

GEORGE TOWN: The fallout from the collapse of Pakatan Rakyat (PR) continues after four Amanah members were sworn in as Penang state constituency coordinators today.
They replaced those in the PAS quota after the PR coalition collapsed when the Islamist party broke ties with DAP and vice versa last year.
The four are Dahalan Fazil, who was appointed to the Penaga seat, Rosli Hassan, to the Sungai Dua seat; Fahmi Abu Bakar was tasked with Permatang Berangan and Azrul Mahathir Aziz to Bayan Lepas.
PKR meanwhile had six members appointed to the post.
These 10 coordinators are assigned to the 10 seats held by Barisan Nasional assemblymen.
A newcomer, Lay Kok Peng of the DAP, was also appointed the special coordinating officer to Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng.
Lim hoped those appointed will serve well and that constituents can get to enjoy social welfare programmes initiated by the state government.
"This includes the golden child programme, the golden senior citizen programme and the Agenda Ekonomi Saksama (AES)," he said before the 11 took their oaths of secrecy.
This comes after no PAS members were appointed as councillors to the Penang Island City Council and Seberang Perai Municipal Council earlier this month.
Instead, two from Amanah were appointed to the city council and another two from the newly formed party to the municipality.
Earlier, Lim also welcomed G. Ashwin who was appointed the CEO of the newly formed Penang International Convention and Exhibition Bureau (PICEB).
He said PICEB was needed as the SPICE Centre was scheduled for completion in 2017 so the bookings needed to start now.
"Penang wants to be part of the MICE (meetings, incentives, convention, and exhibition) market," he said, noting business travellers spent seven times more compared to other travellers.