Sultan's divorce: Kelantan gov't have no information

The Kelantan government, to date, have not received any official information from the Kelantan palace on the divorce of Sultan Muhammad V from his wife Oksana Voevodina, 27, as reported in several media today.

Deputy Menteri Besar Mohd Amar Nik Abdullah said the state government had also no intention of obtaining further information on the matter.

‘’The issue of marriage and divorce is an ordinary thing in life and do not need to be enlarged or used as the main topic of a newspaper.

‘’I am astonished when the issue is turned into front-page reports of several major newspapers. What is the aim of doing so? We fear that there may be a hidden agenda behind the action because this matter involves a sultan,’’ he said to reporters after an executive council meeting at the Kota Darul Iman Complex in Kota Bharu today.

Amar said: "The sultan is akin to our mother and father, thus we must give due respect like we give due respect to the prime minister. Not agreeing (with them) is another story but the respect must be there."

An English newspaper today published a front-page report on Sultan Muhamad V who was alleged to have divorced Oksana, who is from Russia.

In the meantime, Amar (below) said that the Kelantan government had not received any directive to act against certain quarters or individuals who abused the titles from the palace.

Yesterday, the Comptroller of the Royal Household Nik Mohd Shafriman Nik Hassan, in a statement, said no individuals could be referred to as the Permaisuri of Kelantan, Raja Perempuan Kelantan, Sultanah Kelantan or the Queen of Kelantan without any official announcement from the palace.

The official statement also announced that Tengku Muhammad Fa-iz Petra Sultan Ismail Petra is the Tengku Mahkota of Kelantan while the title of Tengku Anis Tengku Abdul Hamid is Raja Perempuan Tengku Anis.

Meanwhile, in another development, Amar said that the criticism of the Auditor General’s Report that the Kelantan Affordable Homes (KAH) scheme did not meet its objective was inaccurate and confusion existed over the matter.

‘’The KAH concept does not mean all is done by the Kelantan government but also by our other leading agencies. The report opined that all 5,000 units of houses were built by the state government, as such the audit report is negative.

‘’In actual fact, if calculated in a comprehensive manner the houses which were built have met the target including the People’s Housing Project by the federal government. It is this misunderstanding that I feel should be rectified,’’ he said.

He said that Kelantan had met the target to build 5,000 affordable homes and this had been tabled earlier in the state assembly sitting by the state executive councillor concerned.

- Bernama