KOTA KINABALU – The prospects of Sabah tapping into the relocation of Indonesia’s capital city to East Kalimantan is currently hampered by the lack of major infrastructure.
As such, former Dewan Rakyat speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia pinned the blame on Sabah and the federal government for failing to facilitate better connectivity between Sabah and Nusantara, the new capital city of Indonesia, earlier.
He said the governments should start thinking out of the box, while pointing out that the Indonesian government has done its part in improving connectivity.
“The role of the government is to be a facilitator to these potentials as the engine of economic growth is the private sector.
“The private sector knows what it should be doing. But what remains now is the role of the government, which is to make it easy for them to do business.
“So, we need to build the infrastructure to facilitate them… Unfortunately, this is the problem of Sabah and Putrajaya.
“They need to start thinking outside of the box,” he said in an online forum organised by the Wisdom Foundation last night.
Pandikar said that if it is apparent that Putrajaya is without funds, the federal government should allow Sabah to raise its own funds elsewhere.
He said the relocation of Indonesia’s capital city from Jakarta to East Kalimantan is a viable project which many financial institutions are willing to invest in if Sabah is allowed to raise its own funds.
“Kalimantan will be a thriving capital and if the government does not see this, I think all should stop talking nonsense and start working.
“Our role is to implement the infrastructure,” he said.
Kalimantan, Malaysia’s Sabah and Sarawak, and Brunei make up the Borneo Island.
Earlier, Kota Kinabalu MP Chan Foong Hin pointed out viable road connectivity between Sabah and the new Indonesian capital city by connecting Kalabakan’s Serudong in Sabah and Indonesia’s Simanggaris.
However, he claimed that Sabah’s portion of the Pan Borneo Highway project is progressing really slow and the RM1 billion allocation was not enough to speed up the project.
“Now the federal government is talking about the Trans Borneo highway to connect both Sarawak and Sabah without passing through Brunei.
“However, at this stage, the government has not come to the part of how to connect Sabah and Kalimantan,” he said.
While the federal government plans to build a customs, immigration, quarantine and security complex at the Serudong-Simanggaris border checkpoint at a cost of RM600 million, Chan opined that it should not stop there.
He suggested that the government also establish a border town, similar to Bukit Kayu Hitam in the northern peninsula and which is located near the Malaysia-Thailand border.
Additionally, Chan asserted that air connectivity between Sabah and Kalimantan is poor, saying there is a massive potential to develop air connectivity in the region.
Meanwhile, Kalabakan MP Ma’mun Sulaiman, who admitted that his constituency is a direct beneficiary of the relocation, noted that Indonesia has developed much of their territory in the Sebatik Island.
He noted that the Indonesian government has built proper roads in their part of the island, transforming it from a fishing village into a modern town.
“The population of their part of the island had also boomed from mere hundreds of people to over 60,000 at present from this development.
“Sadly, the Malaysian side of the island remains a sleepy fishing village,” he said.
He said he had visited Serudong in Tawau and Simanggaris in Indonesia a few times and there was a stark difference between the two sides, with Indonesia having built proper roads on theirs ten years ago.
“Indonesia has done a good job in establishing connectivity,” he said.
Ma’mun also said that the government should also develop local ports and take advantage of the busy Makassar strait.
He noted that Kalimantan does not have a massive port and some goods are transferred using barges instead of large vessels.
Based on feedback, Ma’mun added that the best ports in Sabah to establish such busy trade were the Lahad Datu POIC port as well as Kunak, on the east coast of Sabah. – The Vibes, March 16, 2022
