No water, electricity, roads in Jabu’s Layar

Layar is still in the grip of abject poverty although it is under the care of its assemblyman and Deputy Chief Minister Alfred Jabu Numpang.

KUCHING: The Layar constituency in Betong still remains among the most neglected sites in Sarawak despite having a deputy chief minister as its assemblyman.

The majority of the longhouses in the constituency are without water, electricty and roads. It will take at least a three-hour to four-day walk to reach Layar.

Said Stanley Embat, a potential Sarawak PKR candidate: “Deputy Chief Minister Alfred Jabu Numpang, who is also the State Regional Development Minister, has failed to do his duties in his constituency.”

Embat has visited 70 of the 82 longhouses in the counstituency and is appalled that despite having held the Layar constituency for 36 years, Jabu has not managed to secure “clean water supply, electricty and roads” for his people.

“I have been to 70 of these longhouses. Sometimes it took me two-and-half to three hours to walk from one longhouse to another. There is no development in the longhouses. In Betong, development is not equally distributed,” he said.

One of the worst neglected areas, Embat said, is Ulu Spak, which is a four-day walk from Betong. There are seven longhouses here.

“In 1975, Jabu promised to build a road to Ulu Spak and Ulu Padeh after winning the election. The roads never came. Today, the areas have remained poor and neglected,” said Embat.

Even longhouses which are closer to Betong also do not have water and electricity.

“The Melaban longhouse which was razed to the ground just before Gawai last year is 1.3km from the town. The firemen had to pump water from a fish pond. In doing so, the fish were also killed,” he said.

Amidst such abject poverty, there is a sparkling new RM300 million Resident’s and Distict office in the constitutency.

“It just does not make sense. The building is beautiful but empty… very few people are working there. It was supposed to be a mini Putrajaya.

“That kind of money or a part of it could have been used to provide water, electricty and roads to the longhouses.

“The question is: what has Jabu been doing all this while?” Embat asked.

Election gimmicks

Embat said it was high time that Jabu stepped down.

“Enough is enough… the people are angry with him. It’s time he resigned,” Embat told a press conference held jointly with another potential candidate Abang Zulkifli Abang Engkeh.

Zulkifli is aiming to wrest the Saribas seat from Barisan Nasional’s Wahbi Julaihi who won with a reduced margin in the 2006 election.

Zulkifi, who welcomed the various goodies handed by Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak during his recent visit, said: “We strongly recommend to the people to accept these handouts.

“After all, this is the obligation of the government of the day as the custodian of the public purse to distribute and disburse development funds fairly to the people.

“But after almost 50 years of BN rule, why is it only now the funds are generously promised.?

“Our concern is that these are mere election gimmicks. We are worried that these ad hoc expenditures are not properly thought out to benefit the people,” he said.

Zulkifli said that the BN government had failed to honour its promises made in the 2006 state election to construct a road in Kampung Supa.

The BN has also neglected Kampung Tuie and Kampung Serabang Road.

“There is no water supply to these villages and the roads are in deplorable condition. It’s a sad testimony to the long BN rule,” he said. - FMT