I do hope that the Sarawak ADUN and MP are informed by the Rural and Regional Development Ministry that it has allocated $240 million for the development of rubber and oil palm small holding.
Here is a case where the failure of the ADUN and MPs in carrying out their elected duties will badly affect the farming communities in Sarawak.
Let us look at the Ministry’s allocation
For the development of every hectare, smallholder will receive RM$7,000 and the figure may increase from time to time - (Tan Sri Rahim Tamby Chik - Risda Chairman).
My question is “Does RISDA belong to West Malaysia only?” If it is, what is the equivalent organization in Sarawak to help Sarawak smallholders?
- Kelantan is allocated to redevelop 29,316 hectare
- Pahang - 38,823 hectare
- Terengganu - 14,000 hectare
- Selangor - 11,000 hectare
- Perak - 24,000 hectare
- Kedah - 24,000 hectare
- Johore - 16,000 hectare
The objective of these redevelopment and replanting is to increase the source of income for the people in these state.
Where is SARAWAK and SABAH in this allocation? MPs - you need to ask of these for Sarawak farmers. We are poor and we needed this assistance to upgrade our rubber and oil palm small holding.
Now you know why Sarawak is not progressing
Our MPs and Federal Ministers are sleeping on the job. they are doing only their assigned work and are not looking for opportunities to help sarawak farmers.
Why??? - do Senior ministers in the State really think that Sarawak do not deserved assistance from the Ministry of Rural development.
In Sarawak - the Rural Development Ministry is a TOTAL FAILURE. The Ministry has no plan at all and maybe most of the staff are sleeping - and why not? It depend on the Minister leading the Ministry. If the Ministry is a “control” leadership has has a false believed in himself as the smartest person in cabinet - that is the exact result we see in Sarawak.
Maybe the Minister in charge of Agriculture and rural development is spending too much negative time talking down to those who are not of the same idea with him. The Minister maybe spend too much time indulging is “angkat bakul” self praising his great work - when actually there is non to speak off after having spent more than 30 years in Cabinet.
How do you stay that long in the State cabinet if you are not the chief Minister?
That speak volume of the cunning of such a Minister. The cunning is not in helping the people of sarawak to progress but to hold on to his Ministerial seat. To do that he will do anything for the Chief Minister. That is the main reason why Dayak Iban specifically is always on the receiving end of his negative comment.
Well - we dayakbaru do not think that this particular senior Minister is relevant anymore. He can buy his vote and intimidate his electorate in his constituency - but as a senior minister he is a failure in the State. Despite him trying to impress one small Dayak ethnic group one at a time, Dayakbaru has no respect for such leadership. It is downright disgusting to hear and see him apple polishing his political master.
Who are the losers?
The poor people of Sarawak and the rural dayak population suffer much from this Minister. there is no substantial agricultural program implemented to increase the income of rural population through agriculture. the effect of economic slow down is getting to be badly felt by the rural people because the minister in Charge of Agriculture is not able to implement program to produce enough food in Sarawak.
Simple economics
As long as the people are able to put food on the table - that is sufficient enough to keep hope to see better days in the future. But has the BN government done that in Sarawak.
The recent increase in rice import vividly shows how bad is the situation in sarawak because sarawak cannot produce enough rice for ts own consumption.
Sarawak is not able to produce tapioca, sago, corn, sugar cane, fruits, fish, meat - in everything that is related to agriculture Sarawak have to import. Our government policy is not addressing this real basic problems.
Sarawak have vast land and many farmers - why is the rural and Agricultural Ministry in Sarawak not able to implement program to increase food production in Sarawak? This is because the State government focus on the most nonsensical agricultural policy of encouraging oil palm plantation and the Ministry of Natural resources focus on Forest replanting.
The focus are on these two areas - because the Ministers can make “questionable” money from approving such development. It involved the giving away of large track of Sarawak land resource.
During difficult economic time - can the people of sarawak eat “oil palm” and ‘replanted” timber to survive. Remember - there is not enough food being planted because the BN State government ignore this simple economics.
We import basic food that could be produced locally and import the very same items for consumption. Why are we in this situation - because we have destroyed our land and resources that produce this basic food.
Look at Thailand / Vietnam.
These countries have plenty of food. They export rice, fruits and fishes. Their people will never go hungry during bad economic time.
Look at Malaysia - we focus on manufacturing and export- when bad time comes these factories they close and the people are out of work. Then these people would have no money and the imported food are expensive. Now what would happen? Worst case scenario “poor” people have to go to the street and start a revolution.
Other bad news
In the 8 years of Bush Presidency - he has managed to destroy most of US economic strength through war agenda and overspending.
Today China has 20 million jobless people and 80,000 factories has shut down. They are not able to export because there are no orders. So who is going to buy our rubber - our palm oil. Even if we have that money, is it able to put food on the poor family tables?
The effect of economic slow down has not reach Malaysia that bad. We can see symptom though - multi-national are closing down and Malaysian SMI als following suit. Talk by BN Minister asking the Bank to extend credit are at best “nice to hear”. The Bank are not going to lend more money - indeed they are looking for ways to cut down on potential losses.
Conclusion
The BN State government is wrong to focus Sarawak into large scale plantation and ignoring the production of food. The Rural Development and minsitry of Agriculture is a COMPLETE FAILURE as it has not been able to transfer technology in farming, increase food production, improve the income of rural farmers through improve crop and extended farming activities.
Since the Minister is already outdated and incompetence - he must consider to step down gracefully. Politiking and initimidating the poor people do not change their life for the better. Only R.Mugabe does that and we in sarawak should not suffer such fate from similar thinking leaders.
Dayakbaru - we must bring new solution, idaes, honesty and even be self critical of our effort in order to bring happiness and peace for our country.
PERAK as an example is no peace. Who is the culprit - needless to say the Barisan nasional government that is talking about rebranding and improving is now degressing backward.
There is no HOPE for BN to change. The culture of arrogance, power abused, corruption, injustice, intimidation, corruption and lead by the TO BE “tainted” prime Minister is NOT a choice at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment