DAP Sabah finds unlikely ally in Harris

Michael Kaung

A power struggle is gripping Sabah Umno and the opposition has become an unwitting participant in the tussle.

KOTA KINABALU: DAP has found an unlikely supporter in former Sabah chief minister Harris Mohd Salleh – more than a quarter of a century after they first crossed swords over the administration of the state.


The opposition party may have also been unwittingly drawn into a Sabah Umno power tussle between Chief Minister Musa Aman and Umno vice-president Shafie Apdal when it called on the authorities to investigate government contracts awarded for rural projects.

That call was enough for anyone within the Umno-led Barisan Nasional with an axe to grind to pile pressure on Shafie.

Harris, who spared no effort to attack the opposition party and its supremo, Lim Kit Siang, when he ruled the state from 1976 to 1985, has suddenly found that he can agree with DAP on certain matters concerning state administration.

The former chief minister wants the BN government to “take seriously” allegations made by DAP over contracts awarded in Sabah by the Rural and Regional Development Ministry run by Shafie.

Speaking on the sidelines of a defamation suit being heard here against former chief minister Yong Teck Lee, a local newspaper Daily Express quoted Harris as saying: “The detailed accusations made by DAP… were glaring… there are definitely wrongdoings on the part of the ministry.”

Harris said the ministry’s reply to the accusations was unsatisfactory, adding that it was absurd for the ministry to justify awarding the full RM100 million tender amount for the Pulau Gaya electrification project when the actual tender cost was only about RM25 million.

‘No impact’ from projects

Harris also claimed that he had received “many complaints from rural folk” that the billions of ringgit allocated by the federal government for rural projects was not having an impact on their lives.

“More often than not, the projects were introduced for the sake of contracts and most of them are of low standard,” he said.

Musa and Harris are said to have close family links. Harris, who is a former Berjaya leader, has of late increased his profile within Sabah’s political manoeuvering.

The ex-chief minister has even come out strongly in support of Musa, calling him the best leader for Sabah.

At a function in Keningau last month, Harris stood side by side with Musa who granted his (Harris) Koperasi Sabah Kita Bhd RM1 million to run its contract-farming programme

The co-operative, founded by Harris, comprises mostly Sabah People’s Front (SPF) members who are in turn mostly members of the defunct Bersekutu, a party that Harris launched after the collapse of Berjaya.

SPF president, Berman Angkap, now sits as one of the directors in the co-operative. The party was renamed and launched in December last year.

It is well known that Musa and Shafie are in a power play for control of Sabah and next weeks’ Umno general assembly could end in further jockeying for positions between the two before the next general election.