Chong: State govt rich but ordinary people poor

A GOOD government entails enriching the people and not enriching the government at the expense of the people.

Chong Chieng Jen ( DAPKota Sentosa) said the Penang government was a prime example of this unlike that of the Sarawak government.

“To be a good government, it’s about how to enrich the people.

“But a government that only enriches itself but impoverish its people is not a good government.

“What we have in Sarawak is a rich government but poor people.

“This is not a sign of good government,” he told a press conference at the State Legislative Assembly’s Media Room yesterday.

Chong was responding to Minister of Local Government and Housing Datuk Dr Sim Kui Hian, who in his winding-up speech earlier had compared the state’s revenue of RM5.525 billion to Penang’s RM504 million.

The state DAP chairman said Dr Sim should have instead felt ashamed that despite the huge revenue of the state government, the household income of Sarawakians were a lot less than the household income of the people of Penang.

Citing the ‘ mean household income’ and ‘ median household income’ of Penang in 2016 as examples, he said Penang’s ‘mean household income’ and ‘ median household income’ were RM6,771 and RM5,409 respectively.

“On the other hand, the ‘mean household income’ of Sarawak was only RM5,387 and ‘ median household income’ RM4,163.

“The ‘mean household income’ of Penang is approximately 25 per cent more than that of Sarawak while the ‘ median household income’ of Penang is approximately 30 per cent higher than the ‘median household income’ of Sarawak.”

This meant that 50 per cent of families in Penang have a 30 per cent higher ‘ median household income’ compared to Sarawak.

He added that given the abundance of natural resources of Sarawak, the state’s mean and median household incomes should be higher than those of Penang by at least 30 per cent instead of the present lower figures.

“The main reason for this ‘rich government but poor people’ of Sarawak is that the state Barisan Nasional ( BN) government has done a great disservice to ordinary Sarawakians by allowing selected few families and cartels to monopolise and control the exploitation of our natural resources while impoverishing the big majority of ordinary Sarawakians families,” he said.