Youthful Sabah minister nervous but set to work

Ewon Benedick says his appointment came as a surprise even to himself.

New Sabah Rural Development Minister Ewon Benedick.

KOTA KINABALU: Few people expected Ewon Benedick of Upko to be one of the Sabah ministers sworn into office last Wednesday.

He claims that he himself was surprised.

He said he was speechless when he learned that he was to be the rural development minister for the state. The most he expected, he added, was to be appointed an assistant minister.

Benedick turns 35 this August. He was a first-time candidate when he won the Kadamaian state seat for Barisan Nasional in the recent election. But his party has since ditched the coalition to join forces with Parti Warisan Sabah and Pakatan Harapan.

He said all elected representatives from the Warisan-PH-Upko alliance were invited to attend the oath-taking ceremony, but none was told if he or she had been appointed to the state cabinet.

“Nobody knew until the last minute, when we took the oath,” he said.

“So I was nervous when I was told to sit in the front row. And then I was invited to receive the letter of appointment. I turned it over and it was only then that I saw I had been appointed rural development minister.

“I’m excited but still nervous. There was some talk that I would be appointed maybe as the youth and sports assistant minister. In my mind, that would be okay because I could learn.

“But I feel proud because members of the younger generation have been given a chance to serve at the ministerial level.”

Another young man in the cabinet is Warisan vice president Junz Wong, 38. He is the agriculture and food industry minister.

Benedick said he would attend a briefing given by his ministry’s officers this Monday so that he could get “the big picture of what needs to be done”.

He has two assistant ministers, and they are Warisan members Rasinin Koutis, who won the Liawan seat, and Dumi Pengiran Masdal, who won Lahad Datu.

He said he planned to institutionalise the village development and security committee (JKKK) system into “a sort of village cabinet”, claiming that it’s current operations were too ad hoc and project oriented.

Enhanching the system would, among other things, make data collection more effective, he added.

“I want the JKKK to record things like new births and deaths, the number of primary and secondary school students, whether there are graduates in the village, if they are on scholarships and, if so, what kind – all these and many more.

“We need to build this inventory so the JKKK chairmen will know who live in their villages. Doing this can help us track the movements of villagers and also possibly illegal immigrants.”

Benedick was one of the Upko assemblymen who claimed that they were held against their will at the chief minister’s official residence after it became known that they supported Upko’s intention to quit BN. -FMT