Deal with land issues quickly — Upko Youth
KOTA KINABALU: Tuaran Upko Youth chief Charles Jauti has urged the people of Sabah not to be overly distracted by the recent ‘VIP’ and ‘private jet’ treatment extended to former Sabah Chief Minister, Tan Sri Musa Aman.
“They should instead focus on resolving the problems inherited from the previous BN government, such as unemployment of youths, poor infrastructures in the rural areas, water shortages throughout the state, native land issues, and graft, among others,” he elaborated.
Charles reminded the current leaders of the new state government of the thousands of Sabahan youths who are still unemployed at the moment, while thousand others are still working in Peninsular Malaysia, in Johor and Selangor, simply because of limited job opportunities in Sabah.
He said the new government must also be wary and not to focus too much attention on sectors that are not job-friendly to the youths.
“Timber, oil palm and rubber industries have been proven to have failed to attract to the youth simply because of the lack of downstream activities, unattractive pay and some other issues that are not interesting enough for our youths,” he said.
Charles said it is heartening to see the new government scrapping the communal land title system.
“But the new government also needs to quickly resolve other issues such as when the government is going to alienate land for our natives as they are worried a similar situation may arise as in the past BN government’s practice where issuance of individual land titles may take 10 to 20 years to complete.
“Also, who is going to pay for the cost of surveying as this can run into millions? And, who is going to monitor the lands that have already been entered into joint venture agreements with investors or government agencies?” Charles asked.
“I hope the new government will also give opportunities to our youths by helping them to develop the land and not just give to few towkays as was the practice by the previous BN government,” he said.
According to Charles, everybody knows that the previous state government leader, (Tan Sri) Musa Aman has little chance to become chief minister again as he has lost the majority support from the assemblymen.
Aside from that, Sabah BN is in disarray with the departure of its component parties such as PBS and PBRS and losing some assemblymen.
Hence, he said, the demand by Sabah Umno Youth information chief Mazlan Joe Mana, for the Warisan-led state government to dissolve the state assembly and give way for fresh polls, just because of the boisterous welcome given to Musa at the airport recently, should not be entertained.
“He (Musa) has been saying that he was overseas for medical treatment, but forgot that our local hospitals are as good as hospitals outside our country,” he said.
Charles believed that the people of Sabah knows what is right and what is wrong, and the new state government must not be distracted and lose sight of its mission to develop the state and help the rakyat.