The report should be sending SOS warning signals to the Sabah government but unfortunately none of the Umno/BN parties and not a single Sabah Umno/BN leader have dared to say a single word.
“Where is the chest-thumping self-boasting Ministers and the government telling how well they have been doing to tackle poverty in Sabah and reeling off statistics to support their chest-thumping? asked Dr. Jeffrey.
This deafening silence does not augur well for children in Sabah. Lest we forget, in the recent past, a child student committed suicide because of the problems faced by his family’s poverty.
The governments and Ministers right down to the people in Sabah need to shed off their “easy-to-please” mentality and look at problems in the eye and not be deflected by cheap publicity, self-praising and self-serving local reports.
The UNICEF Report is the second report following the PM Department’s own EPU Report that the poverty levels are chronic in Sabah with 53.5% of the abject poor households and 39.3% in the poor household category in the nation while Sarawak accounted for 11.4% and 11.7% respectively.
Saying that we have reduced poverty from such and such a percentage to a lower percentage does not detract from the fact that poverty is still chronic in Sabah.
To digress a bit, the recent boasts of the reduction of SESB’s SAIDI from 2,867 minutes/customer in 2009 to 557 minutes/customer in 2012 and followed by SESB’s boast that the number of complaints on electricity disruptions in Sabah fell six per cent up to November this year from 23,747 complaints compared with 25,298 complaints in the same period last year.
“Whatever the reasons, the SAIDI should be ZERO and complaints on electricity disruptions should be ZERO!” stressed Dr. Jeffrey. “Isn’t 23,747 complaints excessively high?” he added.
Therefore, Sabahans need to change their mindset and not accept blindly what their BN government tells them.
The poverty levels shown by the PM Department’s EPU Report and the UNICEF Report only re-affirms what everyone else in Sabah knows except the ruling Umno/BN government and their Umno/BN leaders.
The Sabah government and their Ministers should now accept their failures in failing to tackle the poverty problem in Sabah and face the problem head-on. They should not wait for another child student to commit suicide, pray that such tragedy do not recur, before taking action.
The Sabah and federal governments should open their hearts and minds and adopt a new and fresh holistic approach and come up with an entirely new and comprehensive plan to tackle poverty in Sabah.
They should no longer use this poverty problem to keep the people poor so as to achieve their political goals. To tackle the poverty problem whole-heartedly, they should invite people across the political divide including the opposition members to form a bi-partisan State Assembly Select Committee to help formulate the new comprehensive plan and to oversee the government programs to resolve the poverty problems in Sabah.
Related links - Sabah, Kelantan kids the poorest, undernourished
And so it begins. The very first has just been presented by the new Sabah Government after being re-elected in May 2013, and after hours of back and forth (cursing and paper tearing included), the new budget shows that the Sabah Government is committed to progress and is also as determined to increase the pace of development in the state.
ReplyDeleteMusa Aman says the bulk of the Sabah budget is earmarked for development. The RM4.622 billion of the Sabah budget for the financial year of 2013-2014 proposed by Chief Minister-cum-State Finance Minister Musa Aman in the state assembly Friday sought to tell the Sabah growth story vis-a-vis Malaysia’s and achieve the five-year dream in the first year itself.
ReplyDeleteThe release states “The new budget for 2013-14 would build new confidence among people and showcase state’s potentialities before the world”. “Ensuring Continuity of People’s Well being”, it was announced that new missions and schemes, referring to State Barisan National’s Government is very committed to the development of not only in the urban but also rural areas in Sabah and at the same time ensuring nobody is sidelined in the budget.
ReplyDeleteA press statement continued by saying that “The State 2014 Budget is higher by nearly 80-fold than Sabah’s first State Budget 50 years ago where the revenue estimate was only RM61.5 million while the expenditure estimate was RM61 million. In 1974, the estimated revenue rose to RM207 million and the estimated expenditure increased to RM239 million.
ReplyDeleteTen years later in 1984, the estimated revenue reached RM1.22 billion while State revenue rose to RM1.38 billion. 2014, has set the highest ever State revenue target which is RM4.58 billion, marking an increase of 20 per cent from 2013's original estimate of RM3.83 billion.”
ReplyDeleteEven as the Federal government earmarks just 35 per cent of the Federal Budget for development work, the Sabah government spends as much as 65 per cent of the state Budget on development work.
ReplyDeleteTalking about Sabah’s contributing a lion’s share in the nation’s development, Musa said, “Although the state government was elected for a five-year term, it resolves to fulfill the people’s aspirations from the very first year itself.”
ReplyDeleteWhile Musa’s budget speech said the state economy has grown by leaps and bounds in the past five decades since independence, he added that “I am confident that people from all walks of live regardless of religion, race, gender, rich, poor, old or young, physically challenged, wherever they may be ( whether on land or sea); people’s well-being and States prosperity are our main agendas for us to always strive for, which are certainly achievable.”
ReplyDeleteSo there is the mission for which the government has allocated RM 1.58 billion “for improving infrastructure and public amenities”. This is besides RM627.92 million allocate to upgrade water supply. Musa claims that to achieve zero hardcore poor target and reduce relative poor in Sabah, the government has allocated RM178.14 million to implement various programmes. The reduction of poverty from 19.7% in 2009 to 8.1% in 2012 proved that the governments efforts in this has borne fruits.
ReplyDeleteThe budget, claiming to be for inclusive development, seeks to strike balance for growth in both agricultural and industry, enhance quality of life in rural and urban by focusing on housing and infrastructure.
ReplyDeleteTo empower the youths the Y Generation so that they will be more valuable, creative, innovative and productive through education, training, skill programmmes, sports and community activities the budget has set aside RM229.86. The budget also proposes The Enhancement of Knowledgeable Livestock Entrepreneur (K-Entrepreneur) Programme which will be continued.
ReplyDeleteTo spur growth in the State tourism sector, particularly on investment in providing tourism facilities, the State Government has approved the Tourism Master Plan covering the coastal areas of Tuaran to Kota Belud and RM233.99 million has been set aside for next year.
ReplyDeleteThe State tourism sector targets 3.4 million tourist arrivals and an estimated tourism receipts of RM6.277 billion although while writing this, a Taiwanese tourist got killed and his wife got kidnapped in Pom Pom Island in Semporna by Abu Sayyaf bandits. Perhaps in this instance, it is best if the state tourism sector uses the money to ensure maximum security before handing out pamphlets about exotic resorts in the East Coast of Sabah.
ReplyDeleteFor a fair and unbiased understanding of the ‘Sabah Story’ we should read it with an open mind and look at the State’s performance against the backdrop of the low socio-economic base from where it started its journey to rapid growth and spectacular development.
ReplyDeleteThe ‘Sabah Story’ is a story in the making, much like the Thousand-and-One Arabian Nights, it is not a story that concludes here and today and perhaps never will. Sabah inherited low levels of social indicators (at independence) and it is the change in these indicators where Sabah shows impressive progress. The literacy rate has risen from 22 per cent in 1960 to 69 per cent in 2001 and 80 per cent in 2011. Even the infant mortality rate per thousand has fallen from 144 in 1971 to 60 in 2001 and 21 in 2011.”
ReplyDeleteAnybody reading the ‘Sabah Story’ with an open mind would see it is a story of immense success that inspires hope and determination to achieve greater success. But an open mind is something that is alien to our liberal media and the intellectually bankrupt commentariat that controls publications which lay greater stress on fiction over fact.
ReplyDeleteSebanyak RM100 juta diperuntuk Kerajaan Persekutuan tahun ini bagi membantu rakyat di negeri ini terutama di kawasan luar bandar untuk keluar daripada belenggu kemiskinan.
ReplyDeletePembantu Menteri Pembangunan Masyarakat dan Hal Ehwal negeri, Anita Baranting berkata, peruntukan tersebut merupakan dana susulan yang disediakan kerajaan kepada negeri ini setelah peruntukan RM40 juta diberi pada 2010, RM80 juta (2011) dan RM40 juta (2012).
ReplyDeletesemua bantuan itu diberikan dalam membantu golongan penduduk di luar bandar di negeri ini bebas daripada kemiskinan menerusi pelaksanaan pelbagai program yang menawarkan latihan dan kemahiran kepada peserta, setelah mereka mendaftar dalam e-Kasih.
ReplyDeleteprogram 1Azam melibatkan empat bidang iaitu Azam Tani, Azam Niaga, Azam Khidmat dan Azam Kerja dilihat mampu memberi manfaat kepada 7,500 peserta di Sabah.
ReplyDeletePeserta yang telah dikenal pasti melalui senarai e-Kasih yang terdiri daripada ketua isi rumah miskin tegar dan miskin akan dilatih serta dibimbing pihak berkenaan bagi mengeluarkan mereka daripada belenggu kemiskinan.
ReplyDeleteDaripada jumlah tersebut, sebanyak 6,500 peserta akan dilatih di bawah Kementerian Pertanian dan Industri Makanan negeri manakala selebihnya melalui Jabatan Tenaga Kerja.
ReplyDeleteprogram 1Azam di peringkat negeri merangkumi pelbagai bidang seperti pertanian, keusahawanan, kerjaya, latihan kemahiran serta bidang lain yang menjurus kepada peningkatan ekonomi penduduk luar bandar.
ReplyDeletepihak berkuasa tempatan di setiap daerah ini turut membantu dalam memberikan lesen-lesen perniagaan selain pemberian pinjaman daripada Tabung Ekonomi Kumpulan Usaha Niaga (TEKUN), Yayasan Usaha Maju dan Amanah Ikhtiar.
ReplyDeleteSabah mampu menjadi sebuah negeri yang selesa dan kondusif untuk didiami kerana kerajaan negeri mempunyai komitmen jelas dalam merancang pelbagai projek pembangunan perumahan di bandar-bandar negeri ini.
ReplyDelete"Jabatan Perancangan Bandar dan Wilayah mempunyai tugas dan tanggungjawab besar menyediakan piawaian berkaitan kajian dan kaedah yang digunakan oleh bandar raya maju dan berjaya di dunia.
ReplyDelete