Winds of change in Musa’s Sabah?

Musa Aman broke the nine-year Chief Minister jinx on May 5 when he retained 65% of the seats in the Sabah Legislative Assembly to become the longest serving CM in Sabah's history.

COMMENT

Today we are short-sighted in our political vision. The political attitude now is vote banks, immediate selfish goals and corruption ridden personal growth.

Nothing is personalised anymore. It’s simply ‘blanket politics’ in play and this was obvious in the 13th general election.

But blanket politics takes us away from the real issues hidden beneath. And the politics, we know, is a vicious cycle and take us away from the vital socio-economic development essential to any state.

Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman, up against personalities such as former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim and ex-Umno warlord Lajim Ukin, had a choice – in GE13 – of focusing on the state’s vote-bank or on his politics of development.

He opted not to be short-sighted and engage with the opposition’s blanket politics.

Musa chose the difficult and tricky path of development.

He once said: “An opportunity to work is good luck for me. I put my soul into it.

“Each such opportunity opens the gates for the next one.”

It’s a philosophy he’s held on to over the years. When he took over as CM in 2003, the Sabah economy was in a turmoil. The state was facing massive economic losses brought in by 2001.

Musa stepped in and reorganizing the government’s administrative structure including Yayasan Sabah and embarked on a massive cost-cutting exercise.

Fast growing state

As a result Sabah registered a GDP growth rate of over 5% during his first term.

This was one the highest growth rate among all the Malaysian states. In fact today, Sabah is the only state that continues to register growth higher than the country’s 5-6 per cent growth.

Sabah is also growing faster than some of the Asean economies. Planned expenditure has also leapfrogged from RM2 billion plus in 2003-04 to RM4 billion plus in 2012-13.

Under Musa, it’s been all about security, infrastructure development, transparent policies and prudent state fiscal management.

Perhaps the Tenom constituency best attests to this.

Padas River in Tenom used to be notoriously polluted until an ambitious river cleaning project was put in place. The river now appears to be much cleaner. Although the water is still extremely yellowish with siltation brought down from the upper parts of Keningau and Trusmadi the second highest mountain in Sabah, it is now of better quality.

If the Padas River has begun to meander once again, its because the water is flowing freely from the upper parts of Keningau and Trusmadi.

Padas River in full flow is an apt metaphor for the miracle that Musa has pulled off in making Tenom a model for rural/urban development.

Tenom today boasts of wide roads and shorter travel time to reach Brunei, Lawas, Sipitang and even Kota Kinabalu. Its the cleanest town in Sabah, has better traffic control and ample green space.

Tenom epitomises the visible change slowly taking place in Sabah. And the development of roads is a key feature in this state that is criss-crossed by several rivers and too few bridges.

Sabah has for long remained infamous for its bad roads and pitiable connectivity.

But people change from lessons learnt and a wind of change has begun to blow in Musa’s Sabah.

Selvarajah Somiah is a geologist and freelance writer. He blogs at selvarajasomiah.wordpress.com