The five mega-dams in Sarawak have only benefitted big businessmen and foreign industrialists while rural natives whose forests were drowned by these dams are still living in darkness, Society for Rights of Indigenous Peoples of Sarawak (Scrips) said.
Scrips is now questioning plans by the state government on plans to construct 10 more hydroelectric dams statewide.
Society secretary-general Michael Jok said the natives are demanding answers from the Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) ministers and state assembly representatives during dialogue sessions with native community groups.
Jok said GPS lawmakers have started engaging the local natives to try to convince them on the "benefits" of having more dams in Sarawak.
"GPS lawmakers and Sarawak Energy Bhd (state electricity supplier) have started dialogues with us local communities.
"So far, they have held talks with native community representatives from Belaga district (in central Sarawak) and from Baram (in northern Sarawak)," said Jok who attended the session in Belaga.
He said the lawmakers argued that the state needs 10 more dams which will provide electricity to the rural population.
"We are asking them why after five mega dams, billions of ringgit spent and thousands of hectares of our forests drowned, electricity from these dam projects have not reached the rural population.
Sarawak already has five huge dams - the Bakun Dam, Batang Ai Dam, Murum Dam, Baleh Dam and Bengoh Dam.
"In Belaga, the Bakun Dam and Murum Dam are supposed to generate some 2,400 megawatts of electricity and 1,000 megawatts respectively but the electricity is channeled to the mega industries 300kms away in Bintulu and Samalaju.
"People in the interior of Belaga are still without power."
Jok said the mega dams are along benefitting the "big towkays" and foreign industrialists who are not even locals, while the locals have lost their ancestral forests and homes.
He said when the state built the Bakun Dam 25 years ago, state leaders said locals will get priority for electricity links and that the whole of rural Sarawak will be lit up, but that has not happened.
"The GPS lawmakers must explain this before they try to convince us of their plans for more dams," he said.
Jok is a native from Belaga district and his families were among the 15,000 Bakun folks uprooted by the dam.
State Minister of Public Utilities and Telecommunication Datuk Julaihi Narawi announced last month Sarawak had drawn up plans to develop as many as 10 river basins statewide into sources of hydroelectric power.
"We have already identified the 10 river basins where river currents can be harnessed to generate electricity. We are looking at the cascading dam design.
"The plan by the Premier is to generate 10 gigawatts of electricity at any time by 2030," he had said.
Save Rivers chairman Peter Kallang said the idea of building cascading dams in Sarawak had come up before but in 2015, Sarawak Energy Bhd chief executive officer Datuk Torstein Sjotveit said such dams are more expensive to build compared to conventional designs.
"Torstein also said such cascading dams are not practical in Sarawak as they cannot produce electricity when the river level drops.
"In Sarawak we have seen extreme dry seasons and even severe prolonged drought.
"Under such circumstances, these cascading dams are merely money sapping projects, so why insist on building them?" he had said. – June 4, 2024.
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