‘Population boom in Sabah dangerous to BN’

Michael Kaung

Extraordinary increase could spell disaster for the ruling government as opposition could exploit the issue in the coming general election

KOTA KINABALU: The extraordinary increase in Sabah’s population could spell disaster for the ruling BN government in the coming general election, a state assemblyman warned.
BN’s Elopura assemblyman Au Kam Wah in expressing his worries said the opposition would capitalise on this issue in its quest to topple the government during the next election.

He said the National Statistics Department showed that Sabah’s population in 2010 stood at 3.1 million and only 1.7 million of the figure comprised Malaysian citizens born in Sabah.

The rest were foreigners born in Sabah or foreigners issued with passes to stay in the state and Malaysians from other states.

“My question is, are the 641,058 non-Malaysians born in Sabah the children of Sabahans who did not register their marriages?

“It includes those whose fathers are Sabahans married to foreigners,” said Au during a debate on head of state Juhar Mahiruddin’s policy speech at the current state legislative assembly.

Au pointed out that there are many Sabahans who do not have any identification documents because of those two reasons.

“I was informed that the relevant authorities and home ministry have implemented a programme to address this problem but I feel the process must be expedited as the issue could be exploited by the opposition in the election,” he said.

Au is also worried that the government’s target of zero squatters by 2015 cannot be achieved because the price of houses in Sabah are high compared to the rest of the nation.

According to him, based on a survey of average house prices in Malaysia by the property evaluation and service department, Sabah is second highest after KL.

“We all know that Kuala Lumpur has the most expensive houses but Sabah is second on the list. We always say Sabah is the poorest state in Malaysia but yet the houses here are the second most expensive in the country.

“The average price for houses in Malaysia is RM190,000 and in Sabah it is about RM315,000 each.

“Therefore Sabahans have a problem to own their own houses. This will be a future problem and we will not be able to achieve our target of zero squatters by 2015,” he said.

Low cost housing

Au proposed that the government through the housing development board, concentrate on building low cost housing instead of competing with private developers in building medium and high cost houses.

The government can also consider freezing individual application for land and reserve the land for low cost housing projects, he added.

Au also touched on the criticism and unhappiness with the civil service and referred to a letter published in a local newspaper detailing the writer’s perception of the civil service.

“I did not agree with the criticisms 100%, but it we see these type of critics in the newspapers or internet, we can just imagine what the level of trust the public has on the government.

“I raised the issue because it cannot be taken lightly as we will be facing the election soon. Giving allocation and bringing development is not enough.

“We cannot assume that if the rakyat are satisfied with development they will support government.

“This is not true like what happened in Selangor, KL, Kuching Sibu and Miri. These are all developed areas but why do the rakyat not support the government?” Au asked.

Deputy Chief Minister Joseph Pairin Kitingan urged Au to send a confidential report to the state secretary so that specific action can be taken against errant civil servants.