‘Blame game on federal govt shows GPS worried about state election’

KUCHING: The accusations hurled against the federal government for cancelling socalled ‘approved’ projects in Sarawak are a reflection that GPS lawmakers are worried of losing in the next state election.

In making this observation, Pakatan Harapan ( PH) Sarawak chairman Chong Chieng Jen said the Ministry of Finance ( MOF) had clarified that the cancelled or terminated projects were based on two definitive categories.

The first category, he pointed out, are projects that were merely talked about or ‘hot air’ by former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak during his visit around the country prior to GE14.

“He ( Najib) made the project promises. But, there were no budgetary allocations approved in parliament,” Chong told a press conference at the DAP headquarters here yesterday.

Chong revealed that there were hundreds of such projects throughout the country, which reflected the poor practice of the BN government in making promises which they knew they could not deliver due to the lack of funds.

“This is also why there are so many earth-breaking ceremonies for the same project year after year without seeing the project being carried out,” he added.

The second category of cancelled or terminated projects, according to the MOF he said, are projects that were awarded to contractors without any open tender.

“In other words, these are also known as crony projects that will only benefit the cronies at the expense of the people due to the highly inflated price,” clarified Chong, who is also Deputy Minister of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs.

On another note, he also highlighted the plight of the people in Tondong who finally had their sewer tank fixed by the Padawan Municipal Council at a cost of about RM200,000 after a wait of 12 years.

Prior to the construction, SUPP had disclosed that the project to fix the sewer tank and other works at RPR Sri Wangi, Kuching and RPR Sibujaya, Sibu were cancelled by the federal government.

“A letter of acceptance for all three projects was never issued by the MOF. This clearly shows that there was never an allocation to fund the said projects. All of it was empty promises made by Najib,” said Chong.

He added that after the residents’ plight was highlighted in the media back in August this year, SUPP quickly managed to secure the necessary funds from the state government, and work to fix the sewer tanks got underway.

“This incident also shows that if there is a looming threat for GPS members to lose in the next state election, only then they would be looking into the people’s plight,” said Chong, who is also Kota Sentosa assemblyman and Stampin MP.