ABANDONED…..View of the Desa Tapioca Processing mill in Sook.
By: DAP MEDIA
THE Kota Kinabalu Member of Parliament was brought to see the abandoned tapioca mill in Sook, near Keningau which is owned by Desa under the KPD, and it is an agriculture production mill set up by the government many years ago. It is believed this mill had been abandoned some 20 years ago and its operation totally stopped.
This tapioca mill had the primary function to produce tapioca powder for the food industries and also for industry purposes. The mill also had a large land area of many thousand of hectares in Sook allocated by the government for the purpose of planting tapioca to feed the mills as its constant supply of the raw material.
The surrounding kampongs were working on the planting and cultivation of this good species of tapioca which had brought them good income too. According to the people here, they were happy to have been provided with work and opportunities with the mills.
The people in Sook benefited much from the setting up of the mills and its associated tapioca plantation. The project was a good and noble one, but the closing down is really a pity, and this had caused a lot of people failed to gain and benefit from it.
The Sabah DAP KK MP Hiew King Cheu with Dr. Benjamin Yapp and Philip Voon visited the mill guided by some locals and found that the mill is still up standing and in good shape after all these years of closing down. The offices and the living quarters are still used by someone who had been staying there for quite some times now. The other facilities and the associated building are still good.
Hiew said this is a shame that nothing had been done about the mill and the KPD is just leaving it to rot. Why can’t they come up with some plans to get this reactivated and to make it operational again. The mill and the plantation are left to rot, and the tax payers’ money was wasted.
The question is what happened in the past, is it due to wrong planning, bad management, abuses and corruption, or just simply abandoned for no reason. There must be some answers to this huge sum of money being wasted for nothing. The people who were involved must be able to answer some of these doubts and give the people an acceptable and reasonable explanation.
The reason for the closing down must be revealed and made known to all. May be the ex-mangers of the mills and the officers of KPD and Desa can come out to the light to explain to us the real reason of the closing down of the mill.
There are other similar failures related to the KPD mills and facilities in Sabah which faced closed down and fail to operate, and these all needed the government attention too. This is a solid proof that the government is not spending our money well and just letting it to waste.
The situation is not getting better and the people continue to be let down and felt disappointed. What the people want is some income to be earned from the factories which can process their agriculture and farm produce. Many of these Sabahan are depending on the projects put up by the government to boost their income.
Now, it is proven that the government is helpless and had failed in providing the opportunity to allow the poor kampong folks to make some income. It is high time that we must improve the living standard of our rural folks and this is why the rural districts are so poor and backward.
The few days of the kampong visit to the interior of Sabah conducted by the Sabah DAP members with the KK MP Hiew had been very fruitful and successful, and they knew more about the problems faced by the kampong folks, and these has provided a good background and information for the DAPs to assist them in many ways in the future.
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