KUDAT, May 9 — Datuk Mohammad Mohamarin still remembers the memory of more than 30 years ago when the fisherman’s son met a national leader and heard his enthusiastic speech when laying the foundation stone of the new Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan (SMK) Banggi building on Pulau Banggi here.
On November 1994, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, then Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister imparted a message to study hard, thus inspiring him and other friends to change their fates and those of their families.
Mohammad, 45, now a three-term Banggi assemblyman said those memories have always been embedded in him to the point that they were among the starting points of today’s struggle to change the fate of the residents here.
Mohammad, who was among the first group of students to sit for the school’s Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) in 1997, shared that not many students knew Anwar due to the lack of media exposure here at the time, but was very excited by the presence of a national leader.
“At that time, not many outsiders, let alone leaders, came to Pulau Banggi, so at that time we were very excited to meet and hear Datuk Seri’s (Anwar) speech. I was sitting right in front of the stage at that time.ADVERTISING
“Coming back here must be a happy and exciting time for Datuk Seri. This is also an opportunity for Datuk Seri to see for himself the impact of his previous efforts for Pulau Banggi and what is needed for the present and future,” he told Bernama.
Anwar, who arrived in Kota Kinabalu last night from the Philippines, is scheduled to visit Pulau Banggi today, among other things, to visit SMK Banggi and attend an event with the local community.
As a native born in Kampung Patanunan and raised in Kampung Perpaduan here, a life of poverty has greatly matured Mohamad.
“I am a person who knows hardships...imagine if every school holiday we would go to sea and stay at sea for four to five days. So to change that life, one of the ways is through education,” said Mohammad, who is also the chairman of Sabah Fish Marketing Sdn Bhd (SAFMA), a state government subsidiary.
Therefore, he saw SMK Banggi, which is the only secondary school on the island, playing an important role in realising that wish and it had a special place in his heart, and was even among those who planted grass to cover the school’s grounds.
Fully understanding the hardships of the island community, Mohammad was determined to defend their fate, starting with serving as a teacher educating the community on the island area and around Kudat for more than 10 years.
His early career began in 2006 as a teacher at SK Balambangan, located on Pulau Balambangan, which is an island near Pulau Banggi, before being transferred to serve in schools in the Kudat district.
Moving into politics around 2017, Mohammad made the education empowerment agenda a priority for his administration because he realised that it was the main key to getting the community out of its poverty
To translate this commitment, the Banggi assemblyman’s office is now creating an initiative to directly provide cash contributions of RM500 to every Banggi child who successfully continues their studies at higher learning institutions.
Banggi assistant district officer Jaslee Jaafar said that through a series of coordination meetings with the agencies involved, his party saw it as a golden opportunity to share various local facility issues for the attention of the federal government.
“The main needs on the island involve critical basic infrastructure such as water supply, electricity and large-scale road construction, the implementation costs of which are quite high and beyond the financial capacity of the state government,” he said.
Therefore, he hopes that the federal government can help resolve the issue, not to mention that the development assistance recently sent to Banggi is seen to be very balanced, covering aspects of infrastructure, education and security. — Bernama
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