RM500, pay hike for Sabah civil servants, too

Kota Kinabalu: More than 19,000 State civil service personnel of Grade 54 and below will receive a RM500 special financial assistance that will be paid out before Hari Raya Aidilfitri this month.

Announcing this after chairing the State Cabinet meeting at Wisma Innoprise here, Wednesday, Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman (pic) said the move that would also benefit temporary supporting staff would cost the State Government a total of RM9.58 million.

"We hope it will be able to lessen a little bit of the public service personnel's burden for the coming Hari Raya," said Musa.

At the same time, Musa, who is also Finance Minister, said the State Government had agreed to implement salary adjustment for all the 16,255 State civil service personnel under the Malaysia Remuneration System (SSM), effective July 1, 2013.

"This means all civil servants in Sabah will receive two salary increments this year as they will be having their normal annual salary increment and the salary adjustment with a similar amount to their increment," he said.

He said the move emulated the Federal Government's move as announced by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak during the 13th Public Service Premier programme to improve the public service salary structure and public service scheme.

Musa said the salary adjustments would cost the State Government about RM24.07 million annually.

He said among the benefits from the double increment was a higher pension for the personnel.

Meanwhile, State Secretary Tan Sri Sukarti Wakiman, who was also on hand at the press conference, expressed gratitude to the State Government for the bonus payout and salary adjustments on behalf of the State civil service personnel.

Resource Development and Information Technology Minister Datuk Siringan Gubat was also at the press conference.

New BlackBerry 7 handsets on the horizon

RIM has announced that it will soon be releasing three new BlackBerry smartphones, namely the Bold 9900, Torch 9810 and Torch 9860.

The Bold 9900 is said to be the thinnest BlackBerry smartphone, measuring only 10.5mm thick. It will offer both a physical keyboard and a 2.8in capacitive touch display.

It will also have built-in support for Near Field Communications (NFC) that enables pairing of devices by simply tapping the phone on an NFC-enabled device.

Other than that it has a 5-megapixel camera with 720p HD video recording. Meanwhile, the Torch 9810 will come with a large 3.2in touch display and slide-out keyboard for faster typing.

The other addition to the Torch series, the 9860, has an all-touch design and offers a larger 3.7in touchscreen display.

Both phones feature a 5-megapixel camera with flash and 720p HD video recording.

All three phones will run on RIM's next generation BlackBerry 7 operating system. Enhancements include a faster BlackBerry browser that that the company claims is 40% faster than the previous version.

RIM added that the browser will be HTML 5-optimised for better gaming and video experiences on the Web, as well as better zooming and panning ability for smoother web browsing.

The BlackBerry 7 phones will come pre-loaded with a premium version of Documents To Go, which is a native PDF document viewer, and BlackBerry Protect for backing up personal data.

The phones will also have an updated Social Feeds 2.0 app and a new Facebook app with BlackBerry Messenger integration to make it easier for users to connect with friends in real time. The new BlackBerry smartphones are expected to be available locally later this month.

Ambiga fails to challenge Sarawak ban

Bersih 2.O chairman Datuk S. Ambiga has failed in her bid to get a court order to challenge Sarawak's refusal to allow her entry into the state during its recent elections.

High Court (Appellate and Special Powers) judge Justice Rohana Yusuf dismissed Ambiga's application for leave for a judicial review but did not make any order as to costs.

She made the ruling after meeting Ambiga's lawyers Tommy Thomas and James Khong and senior Federal counsel Datin Azizah Nawawi in chambers.

In her lawsuit, Ambiga applied to quash the notice of refusal of entry dated April 15 issued by the Sarawak Immigration director who refused her entry into Sarawak.

Azizah said the judge held that Immigration director-general and Sarawak Chief Minister, named as respondents, were not proper parties in the action.

“The judge held that the Immigration director-general, who was named as the first respondent in the application, had nothing to do with the decision made by the Sarawak Immigration director who acted on the direction of the state authority.

“In this case, the state authority was the state secretary of Sarawak,” said Azizah who acted for the Immigration director-general.

She said the judge also ruled that the suit should have been filed in Sarawak.

“The judge accepted our objection that the High Court of Malaya has no jurisdiction to hear the matter and it also has no jurisdiction to transfer this case to the High Court there (Sarawak),” she said.

Ambiga said she would consider appealing against the court ruling.

“The decision is disappointing given that this is merely a leave application and the threshold for leave is so low,” she said.

Ambiga also questioned how could she file her suit in Sarawak when she was barred from entering the state and her counsel of choice would not be able to appear there.

She sought for an order from the High Court to compel the respondents to allow her to enter Sarawak.