INTERIOR GROSSLY NEGLECTED

By : SABAH DAP INTERIOR

SABAH DAP Parliamentary Liaison Chief for Keningau & Tenom, Dr Benjamin Yapp conducted a random survey of the rural road conditions in Bingkor sub-district of Keningau and discovered that several rural road conditions in Keningau had deteriorated from bad to worse without any sign of road repairs and maintenance works that were supposed to be carried out by the PWD.

There are few bad condition roads along Jalan Mengitom, Jalan Kampung Bunga Raya leading to a rural primary school, SK Bunga Raya in the Bingkor sub-district. There were regular traffic flow from the various kampongs and plantations to Pekan Bingkor and Keningau town ship but the bad road conditions had made it difficult for regular commuters and school children to travel along the earth road that was often dusty during dry weather and muddy with badly damaged road, full of potholes and water blogged holes.

Many parts of the rural roads were only accessible by the four-wheel drive vehicles while cars often had heavy maintenance and repairs due to the bad rural road conditions. The villagers lamented that despite of the promises made by the Government in the previous State Elections but until now no improvement had been made to upgrade the rural roads that had deprived many rural people to improve in their socio-economic development for many years.

It was shocking to discover that the basic rural road infrastructures had been long neglected despite of the allocation of Billions of Ringgit for the 9MP meant for rural infrastructure development but the interior had been neglected for a long time and recently the RM10 Billion for rural development projects under the Tenth Malaysia Plan (10MP) was announced.

Sabah Dap interior mobile volunteers services led by Dr Benjamin Yapp, who is also a member of the World Affairs Council (WAC), having concerns on human rights, poverty alleviation, social problems and related development of the rural communities stressed that as true leaders and politicians, it was of paramount importance to contribute towards the socio-economic development of the people, particularly in the interior where majority of the rural communities were still living in backward conditions, and poverty was rampant in the rural areas.

Sabah DAP interior mobile services volunteers had been moving around the rural areas in the interior to monitor the progress and improvements made on rural infrastructure development from time to time. The rural communities had made numerous complaints to Sabah DAP concerning the lack of proper basic infrastructures, rural roads, bridges, amenities, utilities, poverty and social problems faced by the people in the rural areas.

The rural folks were in a dilemma for long and their problems were made worse with the recent fuel price hike, coupled with increased prices of essential commodities. A survey was conducted by Sabah DAP interior mobile service team in the various rural areas and they found that the situations of the hard core poor families were very regretful.

The poor children were deprived of healthy nutrition and decent meals. It was found that a number of poor children living in the rural areas feed on rice with soya sauce and porridge with cheap ‘ikan bilis’ or salted fish bought from the temu ground without money to buy food and ration from the local market. In contrast to the urban children, they could well afford to eat good food, and many parents could even afford to treat their children for western fast food like the KFC and Burger King.

What had gone wrong with our rural society? Why were the rural people being deprived of a better standard of living? The Government was urged to look into the plights of the rural people, particularly to improve their standard of living.

Sabah DAP urged the Member of Parliament for Keningau and the State Assemblyman of Bingkor personaly ‘turun padang’ and to look into the prevailing problems of the rural people and to speed up with the rural infrastructure development as the Government has declared the RM10 Billion development fund that is now available. The people of the rural areas of the interior deserved to enjoy better rural infrastructure development and a better standard of living.