MP: Budget didn’t address Sabah pressing issues

TAWAU: The member of parliament here, Datuk Chua Soon Bui, has referred Budget 2012 as a one-off budget which alleviates the burden of the people for a few months without any long-term impact.

"None of the pressing issues facing the people of Sabah had been addressed.


"For example, illegal immigrants and foreigners who make up more than a quarter of Sabah's population. No measures to curb the escalating cost of living, especially in the rural areas, no employment opportunities for young People, no sustainable measures to reduce poverty in Sabah which is still the poorest state in Malaysia despite having natural resources of oil and gas, eco-tourism products and contributing 35 per cent of Malaysia's total Palm oil production," she said during the debate on Budget 2012 in Parliament.

Chua also said the budget did not give any mention to the 300MW natural gas Power Plant in Sabah where power supply vis-a-vis requirement has reached a critical stage.

She claimed that Sabah would be excluded of any transformation or investment programmes when power outages occur frequently along with the cabotage policy continuing to reign and eat into the people's pockets with unfair higher prices of goods in Sabah.

"The 2012 budget appears more like an election handout. But there are still a large number of poor and hard-core Poor families in Sabah who will not benefit from it. They are too poor to send their children to school. How then will they have access to the RM100 meant for every school child? How will the poor families with earnings of RM500 or less Per month, have never paid income tax and left out of any welfare assistance going to get the RM500 handout?" she questioned.

Chua described the repeal of the Internal Security Act and other related legislations as a transformation towards greater liberalisation and democracy.

She however said the banning of "UNDILAH" and the Chinese edition of Siasat "I want to go to school" by NTV7 is a step backward against liberalisation and democracy.

Both programmes have been banned from public viewing and no reason has been accorded for the ban.

Meanwhile, the NTV7 programme attempted to show the slow development in Sabah where 20 per cent of the people have never received any formal education.

According to Chua, there are real instances of rural native children having to walk from 3 am to reach their school on time.

"What is the rational of this? Is the image of the government more important than the Sufferings of the natives? Why is the government still trying to hide these real issues facing Sabah with media control through political interference?" she asked.

Chua also made a plea to the Ministry of Education to Provide teachers to the primary and secondary schools at Kampung Serudung Laut.

She said although they are mission schools but the children are all Malaysians and taught the official curriculum since 2005.

No trained teachers have been sent to the schools after six years of their inceptions and no educational assistance has been given to the schools.

She went on to say that if Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak could announce the allocation of RM15 million to 15 schools in Penang derived from the community chest, there is no reason why the educational and welfare needs of the native children in Sabah should continue to be ignored and neglected.

With the recognition given to the role of the Chinese community in education and the encouragement given to Malays and Bumiputeras to learn the Chinese language, she doubted the capability of the Ministry of Education to deal with a situation where there will be a surge of children attending Chinese-type schools in the face of a current shortage of Chinese-trained teachers.

"Has the ministry any plan to train more Chinese teachers?

"Has the government any plan to increase the allocations for government-aided schools in Sabah?" Chua asked.

In a lengthy speech, she also touched on how basic infrastructural requirements of electricity, water and roads continue to be neglected in Sabah despite repeated promises made to the people.

"I urge the Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water to tell the people of Sabah when are their sufferings going to end."

Chua said Tawau in particular had long suffered from substandard roads and urged the Ministry of Works to make up for the deficiency. She also requested for the construction of a coastal highway in Tawau as the traffic jam affecting the town has reached an intolerable stage.

Touching on the proposed electoral reform, Chua claimed that despite numerous guarantees made by the Election Commission (EC) that the electoral lists have been cleaned up, there are still discrepancies found.

She drew the attention of the EC that there are 666 voters in P.190 Tawau above the age of 90 with the eldest being 127 years old. There are numerous instances of deceased people holding MyKads on the electoral list.

"Why the sudden surge in some areas of voters of dubious background possessing newly issued Mykads?

"Has the EC the authority to query such voters or do we just leave our sovereignty to rot in front of our eyes?" she said.

Touching on the amnesty programme for illegals, Chua expressed worry that among 62,000 illegals registered under the amnesty were minors, with 40,500 children under 12 years old, and 21,656 aged between 13 and 18 years old.

"How many of these are in West Malaysia and how many in Sabah? How many of these are stateless kids, how many are the second or third generations of the illegals?" she queried.

Chua said the recent Census Report published by the Economic Planning Unit on Population and Housing for 2010, proved the seriousness of illegals problem in Sabah. In the report, the population Sabah was quoted at 3,206,742, out of which 72.3 per cent comprise Malaysian citizens and 27.7 per cent or 899,799 people are foreigners.

"But what is even more shocking is the fact that in Kinabatangan 78.3 per cent of the total population of 150,327 are foreigners," she said.

"With this scenario, how are we to ensure real electoral reform?" Chua concluded.


BP