QUICK TAKE: When Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said he will make sure promises to Sarawak are fulfilled, he has certainly taken upon himself a very heavy task.
“Elected representatives, please remember, when you make a promise, it must be fulfilled. If delayed, I will come after you because we are a government that cares for the people,” he was quoted as saying during a two-day working visit to Miri Division middle of this month.
Unfortunately, too many elected representatives have made too many promises to Sarawak.
Some of these promises are no small ones and they don’t look like they will ever be fulfilled.
Take for example, the RM1.3 billion that former Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said he had committed his government to Sarawak. The money was to turn Sarawak into Malaysia’s second “rice bowl out of fear of an increasingly weak food security and growing dependence on imports”.
A Financial Times April 20, 2008 report quoted Badawi as saying: “I have approved the allocation for the project upon his (then Sarawak chief minister Abdul Taib Mahmud) request for funds.”
Is the plan to make Sarawak Malaysia’s second rice bowl still good? Has the RM1.3 billion been disbursed?
What is clear is Sarawak’s rice production has not increased. Rice acreage also has not increased while those so-called potential farmlands have remained idle.
This particular promise from Badawi should interest Zahid.
And it sure interests Sarawak padi farmers to know how soon they can expect to depend on commercial padi farming for better economy.
That’s one major promise that has yet to be fulfilled; another one is the proposed SMK Serian No. 2.
The current SMK Serian is overpopulated. It was already filled to the brim even as far back as 15 years ago, which was why SMK Serian No. 2 was proposed and later approved.
But this is one school that’s very long time in coming.
A Sarawak Tribune report of May 22, 2013 said Assistant Minister of Early Childhood Education Rosey Yunus told the Sarawak august house that the state Education Department was still awaiting allocation under the 4th rolling plan of the 10th Malaysia Plan.
The 10th Malaysia Plan is coming to an end, where is the school?
Sadly, while SMK Serian No. 2 remains a plan, Education Minister Mahdzir Khalid was already speaking, last month, of building 42 new schools in Sarawak under the 11th Malaysia Plan (2016-2020).
Forty-two new schools under the 11th Malaysia Plan while the few that were supposed to be built under the 10th Malaysia Plan never took off!
Really, it has been promises after promises from Putrajaya.
How long more can Sarawakians live on promises?
Or rather, how long more can this government hold on to power by making promises and not fulfilling them?
Zahid is not the only one who says he will make sure promises made to Sarawak are fulfilled.
His predecessor Muhyiddin Yassin also said the same thing and that was only last Feb 12 when he was visiting Sarawak.
Muhyiddin had said then that Putrajaya will deliver on all pledges and projects announced during the previous state polls in 2011 and the 2013 general election.
Maybe it’s time Sarawak list out all those promises – if it hasn’t done so – and submit these, complete with their status, to Zahid.
From there, strictly monitor and have a regular update on their progress just so that the DPM can go after those who are causing their delays, or why there is no money in those approved allocations.
So many projects, big and small, have been approved. We have been promised too many things too many times – roads, bridges, schools, hospitals clinics, etc.
There are even promises of greater autonomy so that we can run things only us Sarawakians know how to.
Zahid sounds like he is serious about fulfilling all these promises, let him prove he is not just another one of them.-The Ant Daily
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