KUDAT MP Abdul Rahim Bakri has maintained that Sabah student Veveonah Mosibin had not taken any university examination in June.

In a Facebook post, which has been removed following backlash, the deputy finance minister said his investigation showed that Veveonah no longer resides in Kg Sepatalang.

Rahim said he had asked his officer, Ambang Sobul, who is from Kg Bilangau Kecil, a village next to Kg Sepatalang, to investigate Veveonah’s claim about climbing a tree to get internet service to sit for an online exam.

“From his findings, after interviewing two village heads, it was learned that the Sabah student and her family left Kg Sepatalang long ago as her father works in Pitas town.

“They actually live in Pitas town that has internet facilities and (Veveonah) does not have a house in Kg Sepatalang as she claimed,” Rahim wrote in the post.

Earlier today Deputy Communication and Multimedia minister Zahidi Zainul Abidin put the blame on Rahim for giving him the wrong information on Veveonah.

He said Rahim obtained the information from Veveonah’s lecturer, saying he had no reason to believe they were lying when he spoke about her in the Dewan Negara last week.

“The information came from the Kudat MP who is also the deputy finance minister.

“We were informed that Veveonah had no exam on that day. The information the MP got was from her lecturer, who is a professor.

“So, on the issue, even if we wanted to verify, the question is why would the MP lie? We just believed in the information provided,” he said during a press conference at Parliament today.

Rahim stood by what he had told Zahidi and said Veveonah had dramatised the situation and made baseless claims for the sake of garnering attention and publicity.

He said a Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) faculty dean and lecturer had also informed them that no final exams were being carried out online at that time.

He claimed the dean had told them based on their survey, not even 50% of students can access lectures conducted online in Sabah.

“My faculty informed all students who cannot access the internet to come back to campus and the student knew it.

“Some students chose to stay on campus because the line in their kampung (is) not stable… so we advised them to stay on campus or visit the nearest district office, schools or nearest town.” – September 7, 2020.