Dental Body Rubbishes Deregistration Claim

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 MDA president Dr Chong Zhen Feng says the home minister and registrar of societies have assured him that there was no such intention.
The MDA leadership has had to deal with several challenges over the past year, from claims that it was facing deregistration to allegations that it pledged money for the purchase of a building without proper evaluation.PETALING JAYA: Contrary to claims made in a recent blog post, the Malaysian Dental Association (MDA) is not at risk of being deregistered, its president Dr Chong Zhen Feng said
Chong said the assurance was given to the MDA when he met home minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail and the directors of the federal and Selangor registrar of societies (RoS) in December last year to discuss allegations made against the leadership by some members.
The RoS comes under the purview of the home ministry.
Dr Chong Zhen Feng.The blog that goes by the moniker “Dental Associations in Malaysia” had, in a post on July 21, alleged that the MDA was facing deregistration.
Chong said he had personally met Saifuddin at the Parliament House in December, followed by another meeting with the two RoS directors.
This was after a few complaints were lodged with the RoS by members with allegations of mismanagement which prompted the regulator to ask for an explanation.
“On both occasions, the meetings were cordial and constructive and we were assured that there was no intention to deregister MDA,” he said in a letter to members last week.
Chong said the latest post, which he described as “malicious”, was the seventh against the MDA “to discredit the leadership and divide the members”.
He said the MDA has lodged reports with the police, communications ministry and Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission to counter the “anonymous offensive” against the group.
He added that they have also sought legal advice to explore further actions.
Chong, who was president-elect in December, appealed to members to trust the three-month old leadership to help build the organisation.
The MDA also disputed another claim, made on the same blog, that it had deliberately held its annual general meeting on May 4 in Kota Kinabalu to avoid scrutiny by members based in the Klang Valley, resulting in only 70 of its 5,000 members present.
The association had previously explained that the venue was chosen to accommodate more than 500 members based in Sabah and Sarawak.
Another post on the blog alleged that the president had pledged money to the Sabah and Sarawak chapters to buy a building without any evaluation committee being set up to study the proposal.
In 2014, the MDA was deregistered by the RoS but the action was reversed after an appeal a month later. - FMT

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