PUTRAJAYA: Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM) can no longer hold activities and use its name and logo after the Registrar of Societies (RoS) issued a provisional dissolution order against the party.
RoS director-general Surayati Ibrahim announced this today after the party failed to submit documents and information required of it.
“A notice was issued at 12.30pm, addressed to the party’s secretary-general,” she told reporters at her office.
The decision was made under Section 14(5) of the Societies Act, which empowers the registrar to make a provisional order for the dissolution of any society which had failed to comply with Section 14(2) of the same act.
PPBM had been required by RoS under Section 14(2) to submit the minutes of its annual general meeting and that of its divisions and branches, as well as its financial statement, following numerous complaints lodged by its members and former members that it had breached its own constitution.
PPBM’s failure to comply with the order led to the provisional dissolution.
Surayati said PPBM had 30 days to appeal the provisional dissolution and submit all the documents and information earlier required under Section 14(2).
“Under Section 14(6) of the Societies Act 1966, if PPBM manages to hand over all the required documents and information within the said period, the RoS can cancel the provisional dissolution order.”
Otherwise, said Surayati, under Section 14(7) of act, PPBM’s registration would be cancelled.
Asked what would happen if the party continued to hold activities or use its logo and name, she said the party would have been deemed to have violated the law, but declined to elaborate on what action could be taken against it.
“You just have to wait and see,” she replied.
Surayati said the RoS had received 428 complaints related to PPBM, adding that the majority of them involved management issues.
Among these complaints were several instances of how PPBM conducted its meetings and cases of members complaining that the term “Armada” was used to describe its youth wing when it did not exist in the party’s constitution.
Surayati stressed that RoS’s decisions and actions were based on facts and the law, without taking into account personal interpretations of things, including the interpretation of PPBM’s constitution.
When asked if the decision was politically influenced, she said RoS acted based on the grouses it had received from party members.
“Is any one of you a member of an association? What if things are not explained appropriately? Members do not want this (discrepancies) to continue,” she added.
On the status of registration of Pakatan Harapan, Surayati said it could not proceed due to the PPBM issues.