Rotary Club Of Puteri Lagoon 13th Installation Night

Speech at the 13th Rotary Club of Puteri Lagoon Installation Night

YB. Andrew Chen Kah Eng, State Assemblyman for Stulang, Johor.

26/09/2014

Mutiara Hotel

Our President, Rtn Jeffery Lee, Immediate Past President, Dr. Tee Ching Haa, President Elect cum organizing chairman, Rtn Ng Ling Ping, Past Presidents, District Governor, members of the committee, Datuk, datin, all the honorable guests, ladies and gentleman,

First of all, I would like to extend my greatest appreciation to RC of Puteri Lagoon and all the committee members for inviting me to this warm and meaningful event. And I strongly believe that the club’s commitment towards the society is also as warm as well.

And it is really my great honor to be with all of you here, to witness the success of this handover ceremony cum 13^th Installation Night.

Congratulations to Rotary Club of Puteri Lagoon for organizing such a meaning event. The installation of the new board of committee marks the club’s continuation of the flame of passion towards charity.

For the past 13 years, I believe RC of Puteri Lagoon had left a very significant imprint in providing charity service to help the needy in Johor Bahru. As we can see, the club has been very active in literacy projects, providing financial assistants to the poor, career guide to students, providing leadership platform for the youth through Interact Club, financial support to schools and a lot more charity projects.

Hence, all the RC’s committees and members here, you deserved an applause from the floor.

We are confident that the passing of the baton to the new board of committee under the leadership of President Rtn Jeffery Lee would continue the marvelous achievement and leadership of the Immediate Past President Rtn Dr. Tee Ching Haa.

 

My Dear friends,

Today I would discuss a few issues that strongly correlated with the running of the charity organizations.

The first subject to be highlighted today is tax incentive or tax rebate for donation to registered charity organizations.

For the moment, under Section 44(6) Income Tax Act 1967,donations made to charitable organizations approved by the Inland Revenue, is limited to 5% of your aggregate income.

Meaning that if your company aggregate income is RM100,000, then only RM5,000 is entitled for income tax deduction. Figure other than that is not qualified for tax exemption.

Another example, if your company aggregate income is RM20,000, then only RM1,000 is entitled for income tax deduction. Meaning that, even though you donate RM10,000 to charity, only RM1,000 would be counted for tax exemption.

Hence, I would like to suggest to government that :

1.    The percentage for allowed donation should be increased to at least 10%.

2.  For company with aggregate income that less that RM20,000. The allowed donation amount for tax exemption should be RM20,000. 

The justification for the above suggestion is that, government should give incentives to those who help charity organizations because charity organizations are actually assisting government to share their social responsibility and also easing the social burden of the government.

With this enhanced tax incentives, the government is encouraging more public to be more caring and at the same time eases the burden of the charity organizations while raising fund.

Ladies and Gentlemen’s,

We should take MH370 and MH17 as lesson. We cannot take things for granted. We cannot assume anymore that disaster would not happen in Malaysia forever. We do not know what is happening tomorrow. It is impossible for us to forecast any natural disasters, but at least we can foresee that we are not 100% free from disasters or unexpected events.

We may face natural disasters, epidemic outbreak, war etc. All the while, we have been living in a very comfortable manner (comfort zone). Are we ready for all these? And Is our government ready? HOW FAST OUR CAN GOVERNMENT REACT? HOW FAST CAN NGOs REACT? AND THE IMPORTANT QUESTION NOW IS, HOW FAST CAN BOTH THE GOVERNMENT AND  THE NGOs REACT TOGETHER?

Hence, our government should look at this matter in a pro-active manner to cater any contingency events. The government should take this seriously with more mature and organized vision to prepare in advance. In a damaging and great disaster, government alone is not enough to react.

The strength and contribution from charity organizations would be vital to confront with any unexpected events.

So, one of the responsibility of the government now, is to start gather as many charity organizations as possible to start to be more prepared when dealing with disaster. What I mean here is “Government and NGOs work together now to prepare for any contingency”.

Hence, government should come out with a proper and practical movement to start up this, so call “Gov and NGOs Contingency Preparation”. Because, right now, most of the charity organizations and NGOs are working separately with their own organizational emphasize. THE IDEA HERE IS TO GATHER THEM FOR CONTINGENCY PREPARATION.

With this advance preparation and communication, I am sure we will make relief effort much more effective with better coordination between the government and NGOs.

My dear friends,

The third issue that I would like to raise is regarding the government grant for charity organizations in our country.

I would like to suggest our state government to formally adopt at least a charity project from Rotary Club or any other charity organizations as one of the government approach to help the charity organizations.

With this, the charity organizations would only need to summit their proposal and application once. Then, the approved projects would receive grant or aid from government annually automatically with fix amount at particular time.

In other words, the organization would not necessary to apply from the government every year with uncertain answer and amount.

For example, financial aid to hardcore poor family or scholarship programs that been carried annually. The state government should allocate certain fix amount of fund for these programs annually automatically once the projects are approved.

So, this is what we called as : Adoption of annual projects by government.

I will raise this issue up in our next state assembly.

Ladies and Gentlemen’s,

And on behalf of the beneficiary schools, particularly Foon Yew 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, St’ Joseph, Ming Tek and Pei Hwa, thanks to Rotary Club of Puteri Lagoon for your caring gesture to raise fund for the schools.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to wish the organizers and all the committee members, the Rotarians, the sponsors, the volunteers, good luck in all your future undertaking.

And to all those who present here today, have a pleasant night and have a better tomorrow. Together, we SERVICE BEFORE SELF.

Lastly, Thanks again for your hospitality. Thanks for your support. See you again.