KUCHING – Parti Bumi Kenyalang president Voon Lee Shan is urging the new government led by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to restore Sarawak’s police constabulary, which has allegedly suffered discrimination in the last 60 years.
“At the moment, there are too many police officers in Sarawak who are from Peninsular Malaysia, and most of them have a poor command of English and hardly understand the local dialects, including the vernacular Malay lingo that is spoken here,” said Voon, himself a former police officer turned lawyer-politician.
According to Voon, it is very difficult for Sarawakians to communicate with these non-local policemen, especially when making police reports and helping the police department to solve crimes.
“I often hear the voices of disappointment, including from retired senior police officers, over the loss of the state’s own police constabulary to ‘out-of-town’ policemen,” Voon said in a statement today.
He said Sarawakians should be given the opportunity to serve their own people and state, adding that senior Sarawakian police officers in the past had been discriminated against when it comes to promotion.
“In the past several decades, the post of commissioner of police for the state only saw two Sarawakians holding the position.
“They were the late Tan Sri Hamdan Sirat and Datuk Awang Ehsan. The latter only served as commissioner of police for a short period before retiring.”
“Sarawak, in fact, had many smart and intelligent police officers who were good enough to be police commissioners for the state, but they were never considered for the position.
“Most of the time, this position was filled by police officers from Peninsular Malaysia. To say that local police officers are not qualified to hold the post would not be acceptable to Sarawakians.
“When the late Tan Sri Hamdan Sirat retired as the state’s police commissioner, Datuk Aba Robiyel Huk should have been promoted but to the frustrations of Sarawakians, he was bypassed and the post was given to an outsider.”
Voon said the government even bypassed the late Datuk Ramsay Jitam, a native, who was already the deputy commissioner of police, for the post of state police commissioner.
“Not long ago another deputy commissioner of police, Datuk Chai Khin Chung, who holds a doctorate degree, was also not promoted to be the police commissioner of Sarawak before he retired.
“The present deputy commissioner of police of Sarawak is Mancha Ata, a Dayak, but whether he will ever be considered for the position of the police commissioner of Sarawak is a big guess.
“Many Sarawakians have their doubts but are hoping that the new federal administration will look into this issue and make a favourable decision for the benefit of Sarawakians,” he said. – The Vibes, December 13, 2022
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