KUCHING: The State Scout Council (SSC) is setting up its own property development committee to look for revenues.
Its president Tan Sri William Mawan said the formation of the committee was agreed to during the SSC annual meeting here yesterday.
“We are forming the committee because we have a lot of properties. We cannot develop them because there are bottlenecks,” he told a press conference after the meeting at the Civic Centre here.
Mawan revealed that the committee headed by SSC exco Kho Ik Teck had five or six members initially “to start the ball rolling”.
“We are looking at various business engagements or ventures in the future,”he said.
He said although there were people donating or giving grants to SSC, the donations or grants went to the Malaysia Scout Council and there was nothing that SSC could do about them.
“So, hopefully under the new arrangement, we can work things out based on an understanding with the headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.
“Now, there is much enthusiasm from the young everywhere who want to take part in the scout movement.
“The state government also believes that this is the most important social outreach programme basicaly for the young. But we are short-handed because of the lack of resources,” he added.
Mawan hoped the state government would increase its grant to SSC.
“We also hope individuals and other entities will chip in. But we ourselves must initiate something to look for extra sources of revenue in order to fulfil our aspirations and aims in our outreach programmme.
“We also need to sit down with the HQ to see how we can develop some of our assets or even transfer some of the things that have been given to us. The way the scout movement has been registered in the country … these are some of the things we are going to discuss with the HQ,” he explained.
Mawan added that currently, SSC properties comprised the headquarters building and pieces of land namely, in Petra Jaya, Batu Lintang, Satok Suspension bridge, Miri, Kapit, Limbang, Sibu and Bintulu.
“These are the SSC assets that we have and we are looking for joint ventures to develop them. We provide the assets and the investors come with the funds,” he said.
