Improve basic needs first – Violet chides Milton for Smart City wishful thinking
KUCHING: It would make better sense to focus on more pressing issues like the ever-rising cost of living, the hardships of providing for loved ones and the day-to-day challenges before dreaming of a Smart City, said DAP candidate for Pending, Violet Yong.
“Overall Sarawak still needs to beef up on basic infrastructure such as education, health care, connectivity, telecommunication coverage, electricity and treated water to serve our widely spread population before embarking on elitist programme such as a Smart City or even Smart schools, when most of our other Sarawakians are suffering and struggling to access to basic amenities,” she said in a statement yesterday.
She chided GPS-SUPP candidate Milton Foo for his wishful thinking of a Smart City which she thinks is ‘a pipe dream’.
“How can our city be smart if we only have pockets of good connected areas? Due to the lack of strong, stable and wide coverage, we can only focus on pockets of automations which have already been done by many private companies in Sarawak.
“We must focus on providing good quality basic amenities first which is the basic requirement of a smart city. Unlike Milton, we would focus on engaging the constituents and work with them on the existing avenues to ease their problems,” she said.
Yong pointed out that BN (now GPS government) has been governing Sarawak for the past 58 years yet the state still has the worst connectivity resulting in 64 of 82 constituencies needing face-to-face campaigning in this state election.
“Only 16 constituencies are deemed as having reasonable connectivity to enable online campaigns to be carried out.
“Since the construction of telecommunication infrastructure is within the local council’s jurisdiction, they could have planned these key infrastructure in strategic places to improve coverage,” she said.
Furthermore, she said, the Ministry of Local Government and Housing could have formulated suitable by-laws that will enable local councils to enforce a minimum tonnage for all telecommunication infrastructure so that all residents of Sarawak can enjoy a better coverage and a more stable connectivity.
“One of the ways that could be adopted and implemented is that all telecommunication towers erected must provide free Wifi access to the surrounding B40 group residents.
“By doing so, we would have assisted the children from the lower income families to attend online classes. This would have lightened their parents’ burden to provide them with costly connectivity!
“Such facility will also have helped our schools expedite their digital learning programmes and improve the digital competency of the children from the lower income families,” she said.