KOTA KINABALU – Sabah remains underdeveloped due to its leaders and voters’ habit of changing governments, claimed Sabah Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Seri Bung Moktar Radin, seeing that the state has held more elections than the federal government and Sarawak.
Addressing the state assembly in his wind-up speech, the Lamag assemblyman pointed out that Sabah has held 16 elections in comparison to 12 in Sarawak and 14 federal elections.
“This is because the local leaders and the people of Sabah like to change their government.
“When we change the government many times, the leaders cannot work on developing the state. Instead, they have been focused on keeping their positions.
“Losing their positions is like losing everything,” said Bung Moktar in his ministerial winding-up speech at the Sabah assembly tonight.
He observed that the political instability brought by the constant power shifts is why the state is still lagging when it comes to development and the nation’s shared wealth.
Touching on the state’s bad roads, Bung said they were due to a backlog of state funding requests from the federal government.
He said the federal government has not cleared close to RM2 billion of the state funding requests to date.
“This is why I have raised this in Parliament, and why some of the state roads are now over 30 years old,” said Bung as he likened the terrible road conditions to inedible stale food.
Still, he said, the construction of the Kota Kinabalu-Sandakan Road on the Pan Borneo Highway has been expedited.
He added that contractors have been appointed and work has started on Work Package (WP) 28, WP29, and WP30, which stretch from Mile 32 of the Sandakan road to Telupid.
Although work on these packages have started, Bung again asked whether it was worthwhile to repair these badly damaged roads.
“The question now is whether we can endure (the bad road conditions) for three more years, or spend RM300 million (for the repairs) now and see the road destroyed again to rebuild a better highway,” he said.
Bung also noted the same with the water woes in Sabah, which he said would be solved if the state water services were privatised.
He said improving the state’s water supplies in the long run costs RM27 billion, and between RM5 billin and RM7 billion in the short term.
“The state cannot afford this. It is time that Sabah finds investors to take over the services.
“Even countries with the best water services like the United States and Canada privatised their water services. But in Sabah we are locked by the Sabahan mindset. The people are suffering, and the state remains backward.
“We go around calling ourselves proud of Sabah when the state is suffering. If we truly love Sabah, we need to have them developed.
“Only this way, Sabah can be developed and woo investors when all the basic amenities are properly done,” said Bung, assuring that the state’s issues of basic amenities will be resolved while he is still around. – The Vibes, March 23, 2022
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