Warisan’s ‘defenders of Sabah’ claim rings hollow

Shafie Apdal’s time as chief minister from May 2018 to September 2020 was a catalogue of blunders that belies his party’s claims.

From Jeffri Saling

Warisan’s claim to be the defenders of Sabah really must be taken with a pinch of salt.

In fact, when you consider its actions during its time governing the state from May 2018 to September 2020, a barrel of salt might be more appropriate.

Shafie Apdal’s rule was a catalogue of blunders that belies his party’s claims.

Firstly, Shafie, the nephew of former chief minister Sakaran Dandai, placed two of his men in powerful federal government positions only for it to backfire.

Azis Jamman was made deputy home minister, while the late Liew Vui Keong was law minister.

Azis still needs to answer why there were fires at no less than 10 squatter settlements throughout Sabah within six months of Warisan taking over.

The number of undocumented migrants who got their papers through this method was suspicious and this immigrant issue had hurt Warisan in the last state election.

Another disaster was the expensive mishandling of the arbitration award cases in Europe involving the so-called heirs of the defunct Sulu sultanate.

Just the legal fees and payments alone amounted to RM36,000 (2019), RM167,000 (2020), RM8.2 million (2021), RM13.5 million (2022) and RM5.4 million (2023) in relation to court cases across four countries, namely Spain, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

If not for current law and institutional reform minister Azalina Othman Said’s wisdom in handling the matter, goodness knows how much could have been lost.

Yet another of the party’s ministers was Mohamaddin Ketapi, who was a flop as tourism minister.

Warisan must also explain why it only managed to get RM53.4 million in special grants for Sabah from the federal government during its rule.

Also, if it is campaigning on “Sabah for Sabahans”, why did Warisan contest more than 20 parliamentary seats in the peninsula in the last general election?

This is clearly due to Shafie’s delusional dream of becoming prime minister of the whole country!

Finally, why was Darell Leiking dropped at the last minute if not to sideline the party’s top Kadazan leader?

I hope the people of Sabah will not be fooled by the antics and shallow claims of Shafie and his cohorts. - FMT

Jeffri Saling is an FMT reader.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.