Demand fulfillment of federal promises — Star
TUARAN: Parti Solidariti Tanahairku (Star) welcomes assurance by Chief Minister Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal that the state government is geared to deliver ‘tangible fruits and benefits of the high expectations and demands of the rakyat’.
However, Star reminds that the people’s greater demands extend beyond the state borders and involves the responsibilities of the federal government.
Its strategic director, Edward Linggu, said the Chief Minister must not make such assurance to assuage the people to give the appearance of fulfilling promises but forgetting that most of what the state needs were not easily delivered by the state government.
“For many years now Star president Datuk Dr Jeffrey Kitingan has been tirelessly voicing the numerous matters which hadn’t been delivered although they were written in the Malaysian Agreement and Federal Constitution,” Linggu said.
“Prior to GE14, Tun Mahathir Mohammad and Lim Guan Eng had promised that the status of Sabah would be returned to that of an equal partner with Malaya and Sarawak and not remain as one of the 13 states. This seems to have been forgotten.”
Linggu, a former assemblyman, also reminded that the biggest elephant in the room, is the 40 percent share of revenues collected in Sabah as promised in Article 112(c) of the Federal Constitution.
“Interestingly, Pakatan Harapan had promised in its manifesto to exceed this to 50 percent,” he said.
“The Finance Minister, Lim Guan Eng, had made the excuse that the federal government does not have enough money to pay it, but we are not asking for the federal government’s money but asking for money that belongs to us.
“Other than these are the 10 percent share of the export tariff, and the PH’s promise of raising the oil royalty to 20 percent,” he added.
“And then the promise to write off all the PTPTN loans. Unfortunately, all these sweet promises seem to have now fallen under the ‘we made the promise thinking we wouldn’t win’ excuse.”
In addition to these, Linggu cited the worsening of the security in the state with the state government’s re-introduction of the use of pump boats which were previously banned to prevent anymore piracy and kidnappings.
“Soon after that another kidnapping took place,” Linggu reminded.
Other demands of the people which the state government should work hard to solve is the problem of Sabah having the highest unemployment rate in Malaysia.
“This problem can be alleviated with the promotion of more foreign direct investments (FDIs) into the state,” he said.
“On this, the government should be extra-cautious about getting investors from predatory corporate entities from China. This seems to be the priority of trade missions by Sabah with the recent trip by several Sabah leaders to China.”
Linggu also stressed that the Chief Minister should focus on meeting the immediate demands of the people by first repairing dilapidated infrastructures such as rural roads and expanding basic amenities to interior folks, strategising to alleviate the suffering of smallholder farmers and plantation owners by looking for solutions to the depressed prices of palm oil and rubber.
“Besides, he should be very vocal and not be shy in demanding from Putrajaya what are ‘tangible fruits and benefits’ long promised for Sabah. He cannot continue to assuage the people just with sweet words, but not speak with firmness to the federal government on behalf of the suffering people of Sabah,” he concluded.