BN is running Sarawak like "Animal Farm"

I am dismay with SUPP President, George Chan’s statement in the newspapers that the Government had solved some problems concerning that on Section 47 of the Land Code. I think I want to make the record straight here.

How on earth can the State government solve the problem of Section 47 when there was no amendment at all in the DUN? (despite DAP’s tabling a bill in the DUN for the Land Code to be amended but the lot of BN YB’s including from SUPP led by George Chan walked out the state assembly)

There are still land owners in Bako who are in the dark about what are going to happen to their lands. Some have been under Section 47 for over 35 years and there was no development on their lands as assured by the State government to do so when they should.

I know of a Chai family who would lose their land very soon if the government refused to lift their land from Section 47. The brothers are poor people staying on the land which was inherited from their ancestors.

George Chan, would you like your house to be drawn under Section 47 and having to move out to the streets. Put yourself in the shoes of the unfortunate ones before you blindly follow what CM wants. You cannot, you know why, because by following what your boss wants you to do, you can continue living a high standard lifestyle, wining and dining with whoever you want. So what do you understand about a poor man’s life. Can you even live through a day like the poor? I doubt very much.

Back to Bako, there were about 379 parcels of lands under Section 47 with some going to expire by March 2012. Naturally, the owners of these lands are a worried lot. Most are poor people and that was why the government harassed and intimidated them off their lands.

I would understand if the lands were taken to build schools, hospitals or public buildings for the benefit of the people. But the problem lies in the fact that there was nothing done to the land that the government had ‘snatched’ from these landowners. The lands were left idle and I would not be surprised if some cronies companies took over the land and developed them into housing or shop houses to sell for personal gains. There are too many of such cases already including the 33.6 acres of lands at Batu Lintang which had since alienated to Naim Cendera for private development.

Two years ago, a few pieces of land in Bako, including that of the Chief Minister’s sister and powerful politician, had their lands lifted from Section 47 and furthermore in perpetuity term.

If the lands in Bako area which are registered under the names of Raziah @ Rodiah Binti Mahmud (CM's sisiter) and Tommy Bin Bugo @ Hamid Bin Bugo can be free from Section 47 notification and furthermore with perpetuity term, why can't other ordinary landowners enjoy the same conditions like the Chief Minister’s sister and Tommy Bin Bugo @ Hamid Bin Bugo? Why certain people are more equal than others? We should not run the state like an “Animal Farm”.

Residents: Where are the promised piped water and better roads?

I never expected to spend the Chap Goh Meh morning with a group of senior citizens at Lorong Bukit Nanas, Rantau Panjan, Batu Kawa on Sunday.

Anyway, when I arrived there, the residents were an unhappy lot. They were disgruntled with the services of SUPP State representative in the area.

Apparently, SUPP leaders had been keeping the residents there with false hopes. Not only were they coaxed into believing that SUPP is all the mighty and could do so much for them if they were voted in.

The residents were promised piped water and better roads. But no, for over decades and some 70 years, there is still no sign of improvement.

Imagine staying in a house without proper water and relying on rainwater. After being cheated by the BN government again after the last State election, the group of residents decided to call me in to assist them. Showing me their tar-sealed roads which had turned into gravel roads (due to the lack of maintenance) and certain parts of the gravel roads have never been tar-sealed until todate, the residents were angry that SUPP and its leaders never lift a finger to help them.

They complained that the other residents living on the other side had a better bargain as some were SUPP members. An old woman said even she might not be an SUPP member but she still voted for SUPP. “This time, I am not going to”, she said in anger.

Another resident wondered why Tan Joo Phoi who is the Chairman of the Padawan council would not take advantage of his situation and helped them. Another added in and said the SUPP YBs are just too busy cutting ribbons here and there.

As I took a tour of the area with them, I understand and sympathize with their plights. It’s already bad that after 52 years of independence, water supply is still not fixed in their areas. The government should learn to listen close to the ground to hear out the grievances of the people and really bring development to them.

Do not just do lip service during campaigning and once they won, forget what they have done. As a rakyat representative, I shall bring their matter to the attention of the council and the Water Board so that necessary action can be taken as soon as possible to solve the problems faced by the residents.

Compassionate Aid for Flood Vicitms, please!

A year has passed but some flood victims have yet to get their compassionate aid as promised by the Federal Government due to the lackadaisical attitude of those who were involving in giving out the Aid.

When the Aid was first announced early last year, there was no proper channel for the victims to claim the RM300. Through the media, victims were told to seek help from the Community leaders to put their names forward to the Resident office.

Community leaders are not all hard working people. There were some who 'pushed' the victims to go to another community leader as they were not in their jurisdiction or other reasons they could think of to get rid of doing extra work. And some victims were not even aware who their community leaders were, no thanks to these community leaders who were put there doing nothing for the people!

A group of 70 victims came to my help last year as they heard that their neighbours had already got their money. They were puzzled as to why their houses were flooded but there was no help rendered to them.

I spoke on the matter twice in the DUN. During the last DUN sitting, State Disaster and Relief Committee Chairman, Datuk Patinggi Dr. George Chan was not so happy when I voiced out the issue again. He remarked that if you are late, you are late.

I was not surprise with such attitude coming from him. The problem of these BN leaders who were so ‘high up’ tend not to see the suffering of the less fortunate people.

I was glad at early January, I learned that they were given the Aid.

As there was about 100 more victims who have yet to get their Compassionate Aid, I wrote to the Resident and submitted their names.

I was very shocked at the callous way a reply was given me recently. The officer in charge from the Resident Office should not have penned me such a reply. He stated in his letter that there was no more fund for the flood victims as the money had all been spend. He said if there were a number of victims who did not come forward to get the money and that would be distributed to some of the victims .

His last paragraph in the letter annoyed me a great deal when he said if the flood victims do not to hear from the Resident Office in a month's time, that would mean that their applications fail and no fund is available.

Every year, the Disaster fund allocation came to about RM200 million. The money was meant to help the people. Where is the money? If really, there was not enough fund, then appeal for more.

This is not a supermarket sales gimmick, "first come, first serve until stock last!" Here you are talking about the losses of the people and you have such a callous attitude about it. Have some feelings for the less fortunate, please.

We must not forget that these Aid given out were from the tax payers money.

I hope this time the relevant authority would pay out the rest of the flood victims who were still anxiously waiting. Don’t make them wait any longer, they have suffered enough.

Urban Pioneer at Jalan Peace Selatan

Everytime I walk to a squatter area, it makes me feel downhearted. In a rich state like Sarawak, there should not be people living in squatters. If the government of the day has done its job well in distributing the wealth of the State, there should not be any dirt poor people living below poverty line.

Whereas, in Penang, the Pakatan Rakyat government manages to eradicate the hardcore poor in the state within a year time since Pakatan Rakyat became the government. The things BN government cannot do it in 52 years, PR government did it in a year time.

Jalan Peace Selatan squatters of 200 families which falls under Pending constituency are still living in poor condition where there was no proper roads leading to their houses. The self-tar track road is anything to get by but the residents had been living in such condition for some, the past 40 years. Whatever they faced, they still tried to get by.

Water and electricity have been provided and I could not see why the government refuses to give them land titles by turning the area into a resettlement scheme.

I was there recently to hand out some cash for them to repair the roads themselves. We, DAP handed over a sum of RM3,100.00 to the residents’ representative Mr. Chang Fook Kui who said they would use the money to carry out urgent repair on the roads which are full with potholes.

I know RM3,100.00 may not be a lot to other people but for us DAP, we have to rely heavily on ourselves. If we were the government of the Day, we would do a lot more where money is concerned. With our own budget plan, we want all Sarawakian to enjoy what the State has to offer without corrupted practise and the rich getting richer while the poor gets poorer.

I do not want money to be an obstacle to help the people. Whatever I could, I tried my very best. That is why supporters should understand DAP’s constrain of lack of fund. That is why the voters should vote in Pakatan Rakyat to have a fair distribution of wealth for everyone and not the cronies of the Barisan Nasional leaders, of which one stark example is Naim Cendera Berhad and its group of companies.

Read Your Itemised Mobile Phone Bill Carefully

A businessman came to me with a box of bills which he has kept since 2005 as proof of how he was scammed by a legal service provider! He had paid more than RM4,000 unknowingly for SMS he received which he did not subscribe to in the first place.

Mr. Tan said the SMS were from companies which deal in offers including football matches, marketing products and some lewd ones on massage services.Tan travel frequently overseas for business and thought that the high bill was due to the raoaming service. After a month of staying put in Kuching, he was amazed at how high the bill was. A check through his itemised bill showed that out of the RM469 paid, RM257 went to the SMS external provider charges.

I called that daylight robbery. Tan went to the DIGI service provider to lodge a complaint and as usual, he was pushed from one branch to another. However, he was persistance and got an agreement that the SMS would stop. Tan was told that each SMS cost between 30 cents to RM5 and even if anyone were to delete the SMS without reading, they are still paying money to the company, the external provider.

Such pratice is not only peculiar with DIGI, but all mobile phone services. I think it is high time the government introduced an anti-scam law like those in Australia, China and United States.

We are always taken for a ride for all sort of scam and this one is worst as the government is allowing it to happen right under their nose. The service provider should take responsibility for the whole scam. They should have blocked the SMS from going out if they were serious in curbing such scam. I wondered if they were getting some kind of commission out of the whole thing.

Mr. Tan said while talking to a staff at DIGI, one supervisor even offered to pay RM100 as compensation to him. The amount is too little compared to the amount already forked out by him in the last few years.

MCMC should do something about it before more people are conned. Imagine the number of 29.62 millions mobile phone users in the country. If each company can collect RM10 a day, the amount collected each day would be 296.20 million ringgit. And for whose benefit, the poor common people? Or the rich cheating on the poor?

Collapsed Jetty at Sungai Apong.

Finally, the offending jetty is removed.

Waking up early is a routine for me. I prefer to do things early as I believed that the earlier one starts a day, the faster and more tasks could be done that day.

I met up with my comrade at our DAP Service Centre at Chonglin Park. We proceeded to Jalan Simen, Pending and headed towards the Sg. Apong jetty which was used as a loading and unloading of Land and Survey boats. I don’t like to critise for the sake of criticising but I don’t understand why a government department could move and left behind broken pieces without even bothering to clear up, in this case, a collapsed cement jetty.

The collapsed jetty had been there for decades and I came to understand that previously, SUPP was approached by the Sg. Apong fishermen to help removed the collapsed jetty. Nothing was done. Year after year, the poor fishermen had to put up with propeller damaged and dented body on their fishing trawlers as the bridge was almost in the middle of the narrow river.

The fishermen had enough problems created to their livelihood and having this one added was too much for them to bear. When they first came to me sometime in October, 2008, I wrote a letter to the controller of the Sarawak River Board on October 4 seeking their assistance to remove the broken jetty.

During the May, 2009 DUN sitting and last DUN sitting in November, I brought up the issue again asking the authority to do something. Finally, the authorities get their foot moving.

The Sg. Apong fishermen called me early this week to convey their thanks. At long last the broken jetty is in the progess of being dismantled. I am happy for them and when I arrived at the jetty, indeed the workers were doing their work. One of them chatted with me and said they could only work when the tide is low. He told me that it was the Drainage Irrigation Department who asked them to clear the obstacles. I think he must be puzzled why I gave him a big grin. I remembered hearing from residents in Sg. Apong that the SUPP had tried to get credit by telling the people that they, (SUPP) had engaged workers to demolish the collapsed jetty!

What a way to get credit. I believe that if the SUPP bothered to go to the ground to help the people, they could get their credit due to them. It is a shame that they could stoop so low to get a few praise that way. SUPP thinks that the people are so stupid that they can be fooled around.

The whole issue has shown that the relevant government departments can indeed do their work if they are given a little push. Those managaing government departments should appreciate problems brought about by inaction on the part of the department itself when it is adding to the daily woes of the local people. The department in fact should be proactive, and act to do things for the people instead of waiting for them to be urged to do so.

Turtles, the Victims of an 'Egg-Stra' Law

Source: Malaysianmirror

KUCHING - Lawmakers not only defend the rights of fellow citizens. Sometimes, creatures other than humans. Pending state assemblyman Violet Yong is adamant about defending the turtles. She is aghast at a show of ignorance to the plight of turtles by some 'dignified' diners who feasted on the eggs of these aquatic species early this year.And she became more furious and disgusted when, recently, Sarawak Forestry Corporation controller Len Latiff advised the public against selling or buying of turtle.Early this year, an English daily showed guests at a police function at Batu Kawa consuming a plate of turtle eggs.

The VIP diners

Among those who attended the dinner were Internal Security and Public Order director Husin Ismail, Sarawak Commissioner of Police Mohmad Salleh, general operations force head Law Hong Soon and heads of departments in the police force."The expose by the daily raised the spectre of whether the application of law has been differentiated between the ordinary people and those who are supposed to protect the law," said Yong, who lodged a report on the matter at the Simpang Tiga police station on March 15, a few days after the offensive dinner.She also raised the issue in the May sitting of the state assembly, only to be told by state public utilities minister Awang Tengah Ali Hasan that there was insufficient evidence to proceed with the case."Insufficient evidence even with photos shown? What more do they want? No evidence? My foot!” said Violet."What a sick joke. And here we have Len asking the people to report immediately to the police if they come across people buying or selling the protected turtle eggs. "Is there two set of laws here, one for the people and one for the authority?”Len had told reporters that he was investigating the issue, adding that humans should not be selfish and cause harm to wild life,including turtle eggs, which are protected under the Wildlife Protection Ordinance 1998."I feel furious and disgusted when I read Len's statement," Yong told Malaysian Mirror.

Case being investigated?

"He should not have opened his mouth at all. What he said makes him look so ignorant. "The story of the police taking the turtle eggs was out on the front page of the English newspaper."I lodged a report and there he was telling reporters then that the case was being investigated." Saying that Len is playing both “Cowboy and Indian” in the issue, Yong said the police should have come clean. She is concerned on how the police are going to nab future offenders as the latter might turn back and tell them that their bosses had also consumed turtle eggs and was never punished!“I am sure the law breaker will tell the police who nab him that it is a case of the pot calling the kettle black”.

The police, she said, had kept an 'eerie silence' on the issue.

A black mark

"For them to break the law blantantly by consuming a protected species and keeping quiet about it, I wonder how much faith the people have anymore in them," she said.The incident, she pointed out, left a black mark on the country as Malaysia is a signatory to the Memorandum of Understanding on Asean Sea Turtle Conservation and Protection.Yong said she would not let the matter rest - for as long as the subject of turtle eggs is mentioned by any authority - until justice is served. - Malaysian Mirror

Last Updated on Friday, 18 December 2009 13:41