A 69-YEAR-OLD can still lead a youth organisation in Sarawak as there is no age restriction law in the state, the legislative assembly was told today.

State Tourism, Arts, Culture, Youth and Sports Minister Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah said the federal Youth Societies and Youth Development Act 2007, which defines “youth” as a person not younger than 15 years and not older than 40, did not apply in Sarawak as it had never been adopted in the state.

“There are some things in the act that we (the state) do not agree with, and that’s why it is not extended to the state,” Karim said when winding up debates on his ministry.

In replying to Kota Sentosa assemblyman Chong Chieng Jen, who asked why 69-year-old Chief Minister Abang Johari Openg was still heading state youth organisation Saberkas, Karim said the state believed in having experienced folk working with young leaders to groom the latter.

He said if the act had been adopted by Sarawak, there was a probability that the youth could lose interest in such organisations due to poor leadership.

“We have our own way of ‘grooming’ ourselves,” he told the assembly.

Abang Johari, who was re-elected as Saberkas president unopposed last month, has helmed the organisation since 2009.

Saberkas has always been headed by the chief minister, beginning with the state’s third chief minister, Tun Abdul Rahman Yakub, as the organisation’s first president.

He was succeeded by Abdul Taib Mahmud, who is now governor and who headed the organisation for 28 years before Abang Johari took over. – November 15, 2017.