SABAH’S POVERTY, CM MUST RESPONSIBLE

By : DR JEFFREY KITINGAN

IT WAS VERY disturbing to read in the local papers on Thurs 15 Nov, 2012 that Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman continues to remain in a state of denial on the grinding poverty situation in Sabah.

This is really unbecoming on the part of the Chief Minister. His high-handed attitude should be deplored and roundly condemned by all Sabahans especially the vast majority who has been suffering for so long under the BN Government since 1994.

We are by no means entirely blaming Musa for the plight of Sabah but he must share a large part of the blame. He has been the Chief Executive for a good many years and shows no signs, if any, of going away anytime soon and giving others an opportunity to do a better job.

Already, Upko is calling for the return of the BN policy of rotating the Chief Minister’s post. Soon this call will become a clamour among all BN component parties.

Even his own party members are restive at Musa continuing to hog the Chief Minister’s post even when he cannot do a decent job. This dog in the manger approach must go but not to be replaced by another member of the Aman family.

There’s even speculation that Musa will eventually quit only if his brother, Foreign Minister Anifah Aman, replaces him. This is tantamount to holding the people of Sabah to ransom.

The Aman family should not belabour under the delusion that Sabah is their ancestral property.

Clearly, Musa has lost a golden opportunity to help alleviate our poverty situation and now, at the 11th hour, instead of owning up to the fact and pledging to take the bull by the horns, he’s shamelessly denying that Sabah is the poorest in Malaysia.

We have no intention to trot out figures on Sabah’s poverty. Others have made the case more than eloquently and those interested can look up the Hansard or Google the relevant information.

Suffice it to say that Minister in the Prime Minister Mohd Nor Yakop last revealed the poverty numbers on Sabah during the recent session of Parliament. The salient point that comes to mind from Mohd Nor’s statement is that Nabawan, with a 70 per cent poverty rate, is the poorest place in Malaysia.

Other places in Sabah are not far off and this includes Pitas which, at one time, had the dubious distinction of being the poorest place in Malaysia.

Mohd Nor’s statement in Parliament tallies with the contents of the World Bank Report released in Dec 2010 at the Shangri La Tanjung Aru Resort in Kota Kinabalu to the Sabah State Government.

The report, based on figures from the Economic Planning Unit and the respective State Planning Units in Kota Kinabalu and Kuching, confirmed that Sabah and Sarawak were the poorest and 2nd poorest states respectively in Malaysia.

In Sabah’s case, matters are compounded by the fact that the impoverished hordes from the Philippines in particular and Indonesia are entering our official figures on poverty by way of continuing to obtain MyKads via the backdoor.

The dubious MyKad situation has even led the World Bank to warn in an earlier Report that “Sabah was chasing its tail in poverty eradication”.

We are already poor, primarily due to the internal colonisation policies of Putrajaya, and the Philippines and Indonesia continues to dump its poor on us.

This is like adding insult to injury. If Musa wants to continue in the Chief Minister’s chair, he should summon up the courage to stand up to the bullying tactics of Putrajaya.

We need to get back control over our fast depleting oil and gas resources. We need the money more than the Federal Government and the Malayans.

It will be a phyric victory if we only get back control of these fields after they are depleted. Petronas is not going to keep these fields when they run dry.

Musa should also enter into negotiations with the Federal Government to come up with a fairer and more equitable revenue-sharing formula based on the fact that Sabah has autonomy as a Nation in Malaysia.

The Federal Government should only handle defence, foreign affairs and national economic planning when it comes to Sabah and Sarawak, and we can take care of the rest. The National Cabotage Policy should be abolished.

All these steps coupled with the resolution of MyKads issued dubiously to illegal immigrants are the keys to alleviating the poverty situation in Sabah.