Najib must end ’3 evils’ in Sabah

Michael Kaung

Newly appointed BN senator Chin Su Phin believes the main contributor to rampant corruption to be the "unrestrained and unchecked god–like power" bestowed on some.

 KOTA KINABALU: Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak has been urged to deal with the issues of rampant corruption, illegal immigrants and the ‘fear’ to take corrective actions immediately.

Describing the issues as the ‘three axis of evil’ in Sabah, Senator Chin Su Phin said the federal government’s move to offer amnesty to illegals with only worsen the situation in the state.

He contended that presently one out of every four persons in Sabah is an illegal immigrant and cautioned that with the amnesty programme announced by Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein coming into effect in July, the ratio of Sabahan to illegal immigrant could soon be 1:2 due to the wave of unrestricted entry of illegal immigrants into the state.

“Very soon, Sabahans will no longer feel like they are residing in Malaysia due to the massive change in population make-up.

“Although the amnesty will benefit the plantation and the construction bosses, the majority of Sabahans will lose out.

“Our health care services have already reached maximum capacity.

“Hospitals no longer have the capacity to provide proper health care services to the locals and patients have to wait in long queues together with the aliens,” he said.

Chin said that recently the Kundasang Development and Security Committee chairman Mien Bangaloi complained to the local authority that immigrants, (known by their Bahasa Malaysia acronym of PTI) were also trading in competition with the local farmers at a tourist resort area in Kundasang.

“Instead of being employed in the farms or working as hawker’s assistants,  the PTIs have instead become bosses in their own right.

“The PTIs can sell their farm produce at a lower price compared to the local thus depriving the local of making any reasonable profits.

“Surely this will not contribute to a high income society as envisage by the Prime Minister.

“The population of foreigners are continuing to grow by the hundreds in remote locations like Masilau and Monteki (in Kundasang) and complaints of the security committee in Ranau district are unable to stop the flood of migration of foreign workers,” said Chin, who is also Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) deputy president.

Amnesty won’t do

Chin also dismissed the rationale of the amnesty that vice-activities such as money-laundering, terrorist activities and drug smuggling would be minimised as an absolute fallacy.

“Simple logic will tell you that the more foreigners we have, the more the vice activities will increase and the more our police force will have to handle criminal cases.

“Opening our front door to foreigners will only make way for Sabah to be flooded with aliens.

“Who can guarantee that the time will not come for the foreigners to declare their own Sultan in Sabah when their numbers have multiplied and their population eventually overtake the local population,” he said, citing the self-proclamation of Mohd Akjan Datu Muhammad as the “Sultan of Sulu” at the latter’s residence in Likas early this year.

Chin supported the recent call by Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) youth leader cum Assistant Minister of Youth and Sports, Jahid Jahim for an investigation to determine Akjan’s citizenship.

He said Akjan was born in Jambangan, Nipah-Nipah Sulu in the Southern Philippines on Nov 23, 1957 and “from listening to his Filipino slang, you can tell that we have a classic case where a foreigner has not only become boss but also a sultan in our beloved state of Sabah.

“There will be more bosses and sultans if we do not handle this ‘mother of all problems’ in Sabah with a comprehensive strategy.

“It is public knowledge that Akjan was arrested and detained under the ISA in the mid 1990s after he was allegedly caught with a briefcase containing about 2,000 Malaysian identity cards at the Kota Kinabalu International Airport on a return flight from Kuala Lumpur.

“It was alleged that he was selling the ICs to Filipino illegal immigrants in Sabah for between RM500 and RM3,000,” Chin said.

On the issue of wasteful spending, corruption, abuse of power and poor delivery system, Chin pointed out that Akjan’s company Nautica Technologies Sdn Bhd was awarded the GOF headquarters development project in Kinarut in 2004 for RM214 million.

He recalled that the project ground to a halt due to incompetence and the government had to bail the contractor out.

Chin also cited the the 179KM Kalabakan-Sepulut road project completed early this year at a cost of RM565 million.

“The road cost RM3 million per kilometer to build. But market estimates RM1 million per kilometer was enough to build the gravel road.

“So, where did the RM358 million go to?” he said, adding that on June 18 State Public Works Department Director John Anthony announced that another RM270 Million had been approved for the upgrading the failed road.

“Instead of investigating why the road failed to perform, another opportunity for corruption has arisen for upgrading the road.

“Why do the people of Sabah again have to pay for corruption and incompetence?”

“This is one of the reasons why Sabah is still lagging behind in many aspects and is labeled the poorest state in the country, especially in vital basic infrastructure despite spending billions of development fund in Sabah,” he said.

‘Civilised robbers’

Chin said that another Sabah mega project is the Tanjung Aru-Tenom railway project which was tended out for RM330 million and targeted to be completed in May 2008, but now requires an additional RM300 million for its completion.

He contended the Sabah Railway project has gone off-track, it is incomplete and also RM40 million had been overpaid to the contractor.

“License to govern does not mean license to be corrupt and some politicians will have to learn this the hard way.

“One wonders when there will be enough awareness in this country that citizens would learn to question the ‘civilised robbers’, question them, fight them and fix them.

“Some people termed corruption as highway robbery, I say that unrestrained and unchecked  “god –like” power is the main contributor to our poor transparency index of 4.4 out of 10 perfect points.

“Malaysia barely passed the transparency test in 2008 with a score of 5.5, today we have failed with a score of 4.4 out of 10.

“Since Sabah is the poorest state in Malaysia and poverty being a hugh indicator of corruption, I can say that our own Sabah Transparency index is 1 out of 10 points,” said Chin during his maiden speech at the Dewan Rakyat recently.

Chin’s LDP party is a member of the Sabah Barisan Nasional coalition.