POOR INFRASTRUCTURE CONDITIONS ON MELALAP?

DAMAGED.... the badly damaged old shop building built during the Colonial era at Pekan Melalap, Tenom.

SABAH DAP interior mobile service team, led by Dr Benjamin Yapp who is Sabah DAP Parliamentary Interior Liaison Chief, Deputy Mr Philip Voon, and Mr Kenneth Kon inspected the facilities at pekan Melalap after having received numerous public complaints from the local communities concerning the poor infrastructure conditions of Pekan Melalap, and heard complaints of the inadequate utilities like piped, treated clean drinking water.

The rural people complained to Sabah DAP that they had been putting up with the outdated gravity water supply that often contained dirt, unclean and contaminated water. They claimed that during draught season, the gravity water became dirty, critical and dry.

Dr Benjamin claimed that the quality of untreated gravity water contained disease-producing germs and harmful for drinking. Flowing water from the hills in Melalap posed risks to the health of the village people as the gravity water source came from the hills that might be contaminated by germs or, even harmful chemical and still appeared perfectly clear. Disease germs are easily carried by flowing water from the mountain and hill streams.

The rural people living along a hill stream might innocently cause pollution and contaminate the water without the people knowing as the gravity water may not be suitable for drinking if not treated. Wild animals roaming in the areas might also cause contamination of flowing hill stream water.

The rural people complained that the Government had neglected them for decades since ‘Merdeka’ as they had been deprived of piped, treated clean water supply for so many years. Sabah DAP mobile service team inspected the rural road conditions and found most of the rural roads were filthy and unhygienic with cow droppings everywhere along the roads leading to the various kampongs.

This unhealthy living was not just bad for the rural communities but an eye-sore to visitors, especially tourists who wanted to visit the old township of the former Melalap estates.

Sabah DAP noted that the Government had plans to build the basic infrastructure facilities but this envisaged project was merely a ‘lip service’ that had never been materialized until today!

Sabah DAP urged the Government to allocate the Billion ringgit to improve the present poor infrastructure facilities such as bad roads, inadequate public amenities and lack of basic infrastructure development for the interior in order to improve the standard of living of the rural people in the interior.

If the Government could grant an allocation of RM541 Million to a tiny township of Beluran sub-district in Sabah, then Sabah DAP questioned the rationale as to why the so-called 9th Malaysia Plan allocation of the Billion Ringgit supposed to be utilized for rural infrastructure development was not available due to the freezing of the allocations as was reported in the recent media.

Sabah DAP declared that the rural people had their rights to the allocation of the Billion of Ringgit derived from tax payers’ monies to be utilized for the rural infrastructure development in Keningau, Bingkor, Apin-Apin, Sook, Nabawan, Pensiangan, Tenom, Melalap and Kemabong sub-districts as well as other rural areas in the Interior that were badly in need of funds for basic infrastructure development, housing, ultilities, maintenance and construction of better rural roads and bridges that were badly damaged and posed dangers to commuters and the rural communities.