Bintulu Member of Parliament, Dato' Seri Tiong King Sing noted that there are some grassroot leaders who failed to relate their experience after undergoing Government-sponsored courses nor to impart new knowledge or skills.

"The government organised courses for community leaders not as an opportunity to 'makan angin' (go for vacation) but to enable them to learn and to impart what they had learnt to their charges," he said on Wednesday.

Speaking at the closing of a four-day training workshop for members of Village Security and Development Committees for Bintulu Division at the Regency Plaza Hotel here, he added that the failure of community leaders to impart their knowledge had led to a lot of misunderstandings in the community particularly in rural areas.

Apart from giving training to improve their leadership skills, he said the government expected such leaders to be able to understand and eventually relate government development policies and programmes to their people through their participation in courses.

"Via good knowledge of the Government development policies and programmes, the community leaders would be able to bridge good understandings between the government and the people, which later allowed for smooth implementation of development programmes for everybody's benefits," he added.

The trainings, he added, could also consolidate the grassroot leaders understandings of their own roles in order to execute their responsibilities effectively while maintaining their people's supports to the government.

Grassroot leaders were also reminded of their duty to gauge feedbacks from the people and to identify the problems faced in their respective areas so that it could be brought up properly to the government's attention so that amicable solutions could be worked out.

"Once these roles and responsibilities could be fulfilled, I believed that the community leaders could serve well to the government as much as to their people," he said, while commending the efforts for organising the training workshop.

The Human Resource Development Unit of the Chief Minister's Department organised the workshop in collaboration with the Angkatan Zaman Mansang (AZAM).

Assistant Minister in the Chief Minister's Department , Haji Bolhassan Di, was on hand to officiate at the closing ceremony which was also attended by the Bintulu Resident, Ubaidullah Haji Abdul Latip, Political Secretary to the Chief Minister, Robert Laing Anyie and AZAM general manager, Hasnu Mohd Noor.

ends with one photograph:

A participant (left) receives his certificate of attendance from Bolhassan while being witnessed by (from right) Hasnu, Robert Laing, Tiong and Ubaidullah