*My Longhouses along Segan River and Silas River on October 23 2011

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Speaking to the longhouse community in his visit today to Tatau, ?????and Segan, he said there were cases when chieftains did so to claim more allocations.

He said the funds were limited, and if the chieftain did such a selfish act, it would derive other deserving longhouse folks from rebuilding their communities.

“There was once a case whereby a chieftain declared there were 20 to 30 families in his community, but, in actual fact, there were only two to three. This chief was one who was abandoned by the people.”

Tiong, who is also the chairman of BN Backbenchers’ Club, explained that with incidents like this, his people’s service centre now adopted screening to ensure fund applications for rebuilding and moving of longhouse communities were genuine.

 “The allocations are now based on the number of families in the community and the building materials they have bought. Those families who want to move in, but, have not done so, the funds will come later for them.”

The Bintulu MP hoped the residents understood the need to screening procedure to avoid the funds being misused at the expense of others.

He said in some cases, those who had received their annul grants but, they did not go ahead with the building.

“They cleared the land, but, their new longhouses were still not built up to six to eight years later; weeds reclaimed their land and their building materials gone waste.”

In his current visit to the longhouses, Tiong was happy those rebuilding their communities were doing a good job, adding they kept up with the building progress.

“This shows the teamwork, harmony and solidarity in the community. This is what the government wants to see in community building.”