HARRIS’ POINTING TO A DISASTER?

By: DANIEL JOHN JAMBUN

I think that Datuk Harris Mohd. Salleh, the former Chief Minister of Sabah, had been doing us a lot of service by pointing out things that are not right in Sabah. As a dynamic man of conscience with few equals, he continues to shoot at moving targets without fear or favor.

His latest salvo this week, which appeared in the newspapers on Wednesday, was aimed at the government who he believes has turned itself into a big business, profiting the bosses of the day.

He pointed to the fact that Bumiputera contractors have been awarded 80 percent of the RM5 billion worth of projects in the last five to ten years, yet only about 10 contractors actually implemented their projects themselves while the rest, who do not even have one single ‘cangkul’, passed them to non-Bumi contractors, Ali Baba style.

Now everyone knows this has been happening all the way since we became independent. But few realized that we became independent in order to get the freedom to be corrupted. We didn’t have this thing when the British were here because they were an honest lot.

The British brought civilization to us and to all those countries they colonized. But soon after independence we assumed self-rule and sucked the blood from our own resources, from our people whom we have pledged to protect and develop.

But the difference with what has been happening after the present government took over Sabah is that, as Harris pointed out, it was a government for big business very big business! And the way this has been done is that most of the government decisions, especially for project allocations, were made for the enrichment of the few.

Projects must be tied up to proxy companies, implementation costs to be shared by cronies, and the spoils deposited in overseas accounts. Project allocations must be jacked up to triple their actual costs.

The margin of profits become so big (often twice or more than the actual project costs) that they should no longer be called margins. Because the actual costs are so much smaller, these should be called the margins. The real flesh of the deals are the ‘extras.’ The actual costs become the crumbs left for the people.

The biggest evil in our economy right now must be the negotiated tenders because behind closed doors, leaders negotiate, not to get the lowest tenders for the maximum benefits of the people, but to get what they can share from the projects’ allocations through jacking up of costs. We all know this, but why are negotiated tenders still practiced?

Malaysians must be a shameless group of corrupted people, so much so that we are willing to allow our leaders to commit things that are obviously criminal in nature. We catch petty thieves and imprison them for stealing hand phones but those who sit in high places get away scot free after taking off with hundreds of millions from the people.

Can anyone imagine how much certain leaders must have pocketed from the mega projects worth billions of ringgits? Now that Bakun will be sold to the Sarawak government (actually the people of Sarawak), who else are going to celebrate their windfalls?

The kickbacks alone would enable us to build 100,000 decent homes for the poor! I mean, how else would you explain the Kokol road which could have been easily reconstructed with RM38 million, and yet the cost was jacked up to RM78 million? How else can we explain why leaders can go to casinos and lose over a hundred million ringgit?

The situation is unconscionable, it is insidious and evil, and yet we tolerate it. Some of the people even continue to believe everything is alright and that we have a good government when in fact there is a terrible, shameful rot which is bringing us down. The situation, as Harris said, is very dangerous for Malaysia.

If this continues, there is no doubt we will go down as a failed country. Just look around you and you will see how Sabah has become a failed state already, now the second poorest in Malaysia, with too many people still living in abject poverty, and many people who were once doing well are now struggling to survive.

We continue to read about all the good news about forthcoming development and about billions which will be pumped into the Sabah economy. But how much of these promised amounts will be actually received is yet to be seen. But one thing is sure. If the allocations come, most of it will go into the pockets of some people in power, causing us more losses than gains. Can we call that ‘development’?