They refused to give her the award. Well, now she has refused to accept it.
The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), in a statement, said that Rosmah Mansor and Permata have declined to receive the ‘Lead by Example’ award.
According to a report by Malaysiakini, the Malaysian Prime Minister’s wife made the decision as she does not want it to further distract her from the important work she put in for the children of Malaysia.
PMO also stated in the statement that Malaysia’s permanent representative to the United Nations received an e-mail from Professor Tudor Parfitt — the chair of the academic advisory board of the organising committee — on September 18, saying that the award has been deferred to 2017.
“Praffit stated the award would be deferred to 2017 because of what he called ‘interventions’ from the Wall Street Journal and New York Times regarding the funding of Permata,” it said in the statement quoted by the news portal.
In the statement, the PMO also clarified that neither Rosmah or Permata had applied for the award.
“On Sept 8, 2016, Irina Bokova in her capacity as director-general of Unesco sent letters to the prime minister, Rosmah and Foreign Minister Anifah Aman.
“The letters stated that Rosmah was to be given a special tribute award at an event co-hosted by Unesco on Sept 22, 2016. This was in recognition of efforts undertaken by the government of Malaysia to counter extremism through the educational system, and specifically the approach taken by Permata founded in 2007 by Rosmah,” it said.
As for the source of funding, PMO revealed that Permata is fully funded by the government. The organisation, according to the PMO, is allocated a budget which is approved by the Parliament.
“All expenditures are in accordance with government financial procedures. This is not only a matter of public record, but could have been immediately explained had we or Permata been asked before the award deferment,” it added.
Rosmah was due to accept the ‘Lead by Example’ award at the “A Tribute to Heroes in the Global Campaign Against Violent Extremism” event at the Metropolitan Museum of Arts in New York on September 22.
However, the organisers of the event have canceled the award at the very last minute as the questionable fundings of Permata came into the spotlight.
