By: DAP INTERIOR MEDIA
DR BENJAMIN Yapp, Sabah DAP Parliamentary Liaison Chief for Keningau and Tenom and his Mobile team leaders carried out new voters registration in Keningau township and interviewed with the rural youths pertaining to their Interest and activities.
Dr Benjamin advised the rural youths to partake in healthy activities such as in youth organizations and sports activities that would enhance their health and alleviate social problems. He also encouraged the young people to undergo skills training programs in order to improve their knowledge, skills and talents in various fields.
According to many parents who complained that their children were not given opportunities to further their education in public higher educational institutions due to poverty problems.
They voiced their grievances to Sabah DAP that many of the rural schools in the interior were lack of basic infrastructure facilities such as good school building facilities. The bad rural road conditions have also affected their schooling children in the rural areas.
The poor school children had to walk many miles along the dusty and muddy road conditions to reach the rural schools. When it rains many rural areas were flooded with water and muddy all over the places that made it more difficult for their children to attend to schools. Many of the poor children could not afford to pay for school fees and no money to buy text books and other necessities.
Due to the increased fuel prices and essential commodities, parents in the rural areas were faced with hardship and many of the rural poor families could not afford to have a decent meal. There were found to have many hardcore poor in the interior where their houses were in a dilapidated condition.
The research carried out recently by Sabah DAP interior mobile service team found the fact that the distorted Government policies such as neglecting rural social and physical infrastructure, have been major contributions to rural poverty, according to Dr Benjamin Yapp, who is also the Sabah DAP rural Development Bureau Chairman. He stated that absolute poverty in the rural areas could be alleviated if either of the basic conditions were to be achieved:-
(a) Economic growth must occur or, rural income must rise on a sustained basis.
(b) Economic growth must be neutral with respect to income distribution or reduce income inequality.
Generally, poverty cannot be reduced if economic growth in the rural areas does not occur in the case of many rural Districts in the interior of Sabah according to Dr Benjamin Yapp’s analysis.
In fact, the persistent poverty of a substantial portion of the rural population can damper the prospects for economic growth.
Likewise in the rural areas, the initial distribution of income can greatly affect the prospects for growth and alleviation of mass poverty in the interior of Sabah. The Government should take positive measures in order to look into the problems facing the rural populations as they are vulnerable to serious risk owing to changes in weather, health, markets, investments, and public policy.
The resulting increases in prices of fuel and essential commodities by the BN Government have deepen their poverty and the rural poor have a very low capacity to absorb abrupt financial shocks, coupled with the current economic crisis and poverty problems facing the rural communities, thus bring about shares increases in poverty and make it more difficult for the rural poor to escape poverty in the rural areas.
Sabah DAP urged the Government to design policies that have a chance of effectively helping the rural poor and the focus of policy should be on groups of small holders, landless tenants, landless laborers, and rural women who could also contribute towards the socio-economic development in the rural areas in a statement made by Dr Benjamin Yapp in Keningau recently.
The presence of foreigners in Sabah is alarming as the interior has a vast population of foreigners among the foreign workers who mainly work in the plantation and manufacturing industries in many rural Districts. Many foreigners managed to obtain PR status and MyKad and became Malaysian citizens.
The districts of Keningau and Tenom are facing critical flood problems in many
rural areas, particularly near the rivers and streams. Dr Benjamin Yapp advised the village folks who lived nearby rivers to be extra careful and avoid going to the river. If, there was a need to go for washing clothes, he advised them to go to safe, shallow water with a group and never be alone. Sabah DAP urged the village heads to monitor the situations to prevent any untoward incident during the raining season, and when the river water rises above normal levels.
The Sabah DAP mobile voluntary service teams would be visiting other areas in and Keningau and Tenom to offer registration of new voters for those who have not yet registered as they have their rights to vote regardless of whichever parties, and that those who have problems in getting PPRT, welfare and other schemes for the hardcore poor, and the rural communities, they could always approach the volunteers as they were always available for the rural communities without prejudice to their affiliation with any associations or, parties.
The most important thing was that ‘Sabah DAP is people’s and service-oriented party’ said Dr Benjamin Yapp in his recent statement made in the interior. We served the people without prejudice or, discrimination to their social, economic and political backgrounds.
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