Kota Belud MP: SAPP’s Marajin is blind

Abdul Rahman Dahlan asks if the SAPP leader has even been to Kota Belud in the first place.

KUALA LUMPUR: Umno-Kota Belud MP Abdul Rahman Dahlan has attacked SAPP supreme council member Peter Marajin over what the former claimed were baseless accusations.

The Sabahan MP asked if Marajin – who claimed nothing was being done in Kota Belud – had visited his constituency in the first place.

“This Peter Marajin, I don’t know what he’s talking about. The federal government has easily allocated RM120 million, and [the development] is there. If he cannot see what has been done, he has to see an optometrist, he better check his eyes,” he told FMT.

Abdul Rahman said that since allocations there were approved, various agricultural methods including tunneling and irrigation measures had been carried out.

He added that these measures were needed to help water the paddy fields there; part of an initiative to reduce Sabah’s dependency on imported rice.

He was referring to a recent FMT article where Marajin criticised him for preferring to speak on federal and economic matters than focusing on his own constituency.

The SAPP leader also claimed that nothing had been done to ease the area’s traffic congestion.

These allegations appeared to bewilder the Kota Belud MP, who said that he had tried to build alternative exit roads for the Kota Belud town.

“I managed to get allocation to build these roads, but at the end of the day, some land acquistion needed to be done, but the people were not willing to let go of the land,” he said.

He added that after fierce opposition criticism, the government decided not to go ahead with construction, and withdrew the allocations.

Abdul Rahman then stressed that it was his job as an MP to speak on national issues, even if they had nothing to do with Kota Belud.

“Who’s going to talk about national issues if not the MPs? We are the ones who are responsible to pass the national budget. If you don’t get your MPs to talk about this, who is going to talk about it?

“We don’t talk about state issues alone, we have to talk about national issues because we are at the federal level,” he said tiredly.

Abdul Rahman then said that if Marajin did not believe him, he was willing to let his officers show the SAPP man around his constituency.

He however claimed that Marajin was eyeing the Kedamaian state assembly seat, adding that the letter was merely “playing hero”.