Sarawak defends unemployed graduate scheme following online games incident

MIRI (Bernama) – Sarawak has defended the Capacity Building for Graduate (CBG) programme although a female CBG trainee was caught red-handed playing online games in the office in Sibu via a video-recording that went viral on the Facebook.

Sarawak Welfare, Women and Family Development Minister Datuk Fatimah Abdullah said the incident should not be taken as a failure of the CBG because the programme had benefitted thousands of graduates in the state.

“Even my personal assistant came out from that programme successfully and many more under the CBG have become success stories,” she said when opening the “Program Kenali Anak Kita Petronas” (PKAKP) seminar, here yesterday.

The CBG programme is tailored for unemployed graduates in Sarawak to gain employment either in the public or private sectors by placing them temporarily in certain industries to gain working experience and eventually to absorb them into the job market as permanent staff.

The incident was recorded by a local businessman who had taken a woman to the Sibu Welfare Department to seek assistance for her.

A local Chinese daily subsequently reported the incident which prompted the Welfare Department to take immediate action.

“She has been reminded not to repeat the offence, and since she is still young, please be fair to her,” Fatimah said, adding that the computer she used to play the online game was actually for the purpose of registering people with disabilities (Orang Kurang Upaya-OKU) in Sibu.

She said an investigation was still ongoing to find out how the online games could be downloaded to the computer since online games or any form of related gaming software had been banned from being downloaded to any computer owned by the state government.

Earlier when opening the seminar, she suggested that Petronas organised PKAKP seminars in major towns in Sarawak.