MORE PROMISES NOT FULFILLED

By : STEPHEN YAMAN

THE DEMOCRATIC Action Party (DAP) recently went on public hearing “Janji Ditepati” road tour of Sabah with Lim Kit Siang starting with Kota Kinabalu, then Ranau, Donggongon, Tenom, Keningau, Lahat Datu and ended at Tawau in an effort to check whether our government is fulfilling its promises.

Lim Kit Siang refuted the sincerity of the government regarding the implementation of the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI). The issue has been going on for seven months but has yet to commence despite the Terms of Reference (ToR) already in place and its members already appointed.

Lim said that the Cobbolt Commission on the formation of the Federation of Malaysia took only a short time (between January 17, 1962 to July 1962) to complete the public hearing on whether they wanted Sabah to be part of Malaysia.

The response from the Sabahan on the promises not fulfilled was tremendous especially on issues brought up by Kota Kinabalu Member of Parliament, Dr Hiew King Cheu’s power point presentation on the two subjects he raised, namely, “Roads” and “Low Cost Housing”. Dr Hiew said that he will only discuss two subjects for this tour as the two subjects would already provide so many evidences (in photos) of “Janji tidak ditepati”.

Dr. Hiew and his Pakatan Rakyat (PR) team have been going around Sabah for many months gathering information and evidences on the BN government mismanagement of public funds involving billions of Ringgit on so many projects covering roads & bridges, low cost housing, hospitals & ambulances, education, water supply, electricity, infrastructure, agriculture, land, street lighting, drainage system, parks, maintenance system, and so on. All these will be compiled subject by subject for the BN to answer and make good before the coming PRU13 so that “Janji Ditepati” or “Promises fulfilled”.

Prime Minister Najib and Chief Minister Musa have to “Walk the talk” and “Turun padang” (as they say) to see and experience for themselves how the people of Sabah feel about the promises of the BN government.

Dr Hiew said that “Photos speak a thousand words or stories” and never lie. It is not about “Hatred” as the BN leaders are implying. It is for BN to do their jobs (and stop talking) with the amount of public funds allocated for all the projects. There are sufficient funds or budget approved by parliament being allocated for the projects. What happen to the funds?

If the present government is doing their jobs and making sure that everything is done properly, nobody is going to question them. Just look at our neighbors, Singapore and Brunei. In Penang, we even used some of the ideas from Singapore such as the HDB housing. We have been using Brunei roads to cross from Sabah to Sarawak.

What happened to our Pan Borneo highway that has been planned since the 1960’s and has been questioned election after election? And Sabahans have to chop passports many times just getting in and out of Brunei to go Sarawak and vice versa – not to mention other inconveniences and costs such as products movements.

As the BN leaders have been saying, Sabah has been their “Fixed Deposit (FD)”. This time around BN has to ensure that the FD is not withdrawn by “Janji Ditepati”. BN has to rectify whatever projects that are below the standards or not completed and/or abandon in Sabah.

This is totally unacceptable. The only times we hear about projects were at the launching. After that, many are never completed and many more have completion dates continuously moving forward… if completed have many non conformance reports.

At the end of the recent tour of Sabah in Tawau on “Janji Ditepati” and after the presentations, Dr Hiew asked the people to stand up and give what they think is their verdict of BN government’s performance. Everyone stood up with their hands held high and crossed.

Therefore, it is not about opposition “lies or hatred” but the people have been coming to voice out their problems to DAP. DAP is merely voicing out the people’s complaints. So, for BN, it is to make good their promises for Sabah as PRU13 is just round the corner. Forty nine years has been sufficient time to fulfill promises! Does BN need another five?