Stop the discrimination on BN Development and denying of People's Rights

KOTA KINABALU - “It is not true that opposition elected representatives are reluctant to ask the government to provide development or solve problems in their areas thus depriving the people of government benefits BUT it is the Sabah BN government including the Chief Minister himself who deliberately DO NOT RESPOND to these requests simply because these requests come from opposition representatives,” said Datuk Dr. Jeffrey Kitingan, Bingkor State Assemblyman cum STAR President, in response to the political speech of the Chief Minister while in Pagalungan, Pensiangan.

It is sad that BN leaders have to continue with lies and deception to fool ordinary Malaysians especially the rural poor that only the Barisan Nasional can bring about development for their constituencies and that the opposition and their representatives are unable to bring development.

It is fortunate that the rakyat are no longer fools to be duped time and again by the BN leaders and are fully aware that development is the responsibility of the government of the day, which is currently the BN government and not the opposition.

If one were to traverse the whole of Sabah, it is very obvious that the BN government has failed to properly develop Sabah. Almost everywhere, there is lack of clean treated water, electricity and good roads.  Even sealed roads are not properly maintained.

Even the Chief Minister in going to Pagalungan, Pensiangan, has to travel by helicopter.  If he had travelled by road, he would have travelled at least about 2 hours by gravel road to reach Pergalungan, and if it had rained, he would have difficulty getting there. He would have also noticed that the Sepulut-Kalabakan highway in a bad state of repairs even though it was just completed a few years ago.

In the State Legislative Assembly, the opposition representatives have repeatedly voiced the requests of the rakyat for development, improvements and repairs and maintenance.

“Even, I, myself, have made numerous requests for the government to provide the development and repairs of infrastructure and other facilities which the BN government as the current government has a moral and legal duty to provide.   These requests are properly recorded in the Assembly proceedings.  Unfortunately, they have not been acted upon by the BN government” added Dr. Jeffrey.

The government should respect the demands of the Rakyat through their elected representatives because they represent the voices of the people. This is in fact the attitude of the government and its leaders to cover up their weaknesses and blame the opposition when the BN government is the one who has failed to properly develop Sabah and making it the poorest State in Malaysia with 40% of all poor Malaysians. 

This is proven by the fact that even the rights of Sabah written in the Federal Constitution are totally ignored for the past 50 years including Sabah’s revenue rights for the past 47 years for which our leaders are sworn to protect.

The ominous signs of the rural people knowing the lies of the BN government are set out in the results of the last elections where all the 3 parliament seats and 5 of the 7 state seats in Pensiangan, Keningau and Tenom including the Bingkor seat would have been won by the opposition.   The ruling BN government lost the popular votes and in all probability the opposition will win these seats in the coming elections.

The Solidariti Tanah Airku (STAR) party together with its Gabungan Sabah (USA) partners and other opposition coalition parties is confident that the people are aware of their options in the coming elections and that it will be a better government for all Malaysians in Sabah including providing better development, infrastructure and facilities than the current BN government.