Wasted land lots

The land lots at second phase of Sg. Plan resettlement scheme costs around RM13,000.00 to own. This price is exclusive of earth fillings. The house building costs is yet another head cracking expenses, especially so for the medium and low income group owners of that particular land lots.

Amongst the 169 people who were lucky enough to get the land via casting, hardly 20 of them managed to construct their houses as of this date. It is either that they don’t need this land or could not come up with enough funds to settle the land and to build their houses. In fact, there are a lot of people out there who really deserve that small piece of land to build their houses.

According to the terms and conditions of purchase of that particular land lots, owners were given a 6 months period to make full settlement, failing which the land would be withdrawn by BDA and resold to other people. Now that over 3 years has passed by, no action has been taken by BDA to recover that unsettled land lots. From the way it is now, this project was created nothing more than to benefit particular politicians and some influential people.

Whatever it is, it’s another example of a waste of resources and disregards of public interest and rights committed by BDA.

Malfunctioning traffic lights

Excerpt from Bintulu.org news portal

Jepak assemblyman attributes Sarawak economic growth to good leadership

October 20, 2008

“The strong economic growth and development in Sarawak is due the caliber of leadership and good policies implemented by the government said Jepak assemblyman Datuk Zulpilip in his “Hari Raya” open house here yesterday.

The open house held at Kampung Assyakirin were attended by some 1,000 people including Head of State Tun Abang Muhammad Salahuddin and wife Toh Puan Norkiah, government department heads and community leaders from around Bintulu division.

Talip said Sarawak is endowed with rich natural resources but if there is no good government and good policies implemented, such natural resources would not be fully exploited for the benefit of the people.

Citing Bintulu as an example the state assemblyman said there are plenty of job opportunities created in Bintulu that attracted not only people from other Divisions of Sarawak but also from all over the world.

Talip called on the people to continue supporting government efforts for continued development and prosperity.”

This is what I meant in my previous post, (Problems of Unemployment), the one highlighted in red.

Problems of unemployment

Unemployment is a universal and major setbacks of a modern civilisation. Like anywhere else in the world, unemployment rate in Sarawak is considerably high.

To understand the root cause of this problems, we must relate it to our government’s labour policy. When the government allows the recruitment of cheap foreign labourers into the country, it has some side effects on the local labour market. It has since spoiled the chances of local people to secure employment especially in the manufacturing sectors. When the employer have wide choices of cheap labour supplies, especially from Indonesia, our local citizens are being deprived of their common rights to job opportunities. Not only that, the availability of cheap labour markets also has deprived the local citizens of better pay structures. Take for example in the plywood manufacturing industries, with the Indonesian labourers ready to take up these jobs for a daily wages of RM8 – RM9, surely the employers would opt for these labourers. How could local people survive with this kind of wages especially so, when the cost of living is on the rise. If these cheap labour supplies were not available to these employers, the chances for demanding higher daily wages for locals would be better.

Another setback and disadvantages of over-dependent on foreign labourers is that the country tend to lose in the forms of foreign exchange, that is when the money is taken out of the country or the outflow of cash. So, the government should review this policy, especially the state government, so as to help the local citizens, not foreigners.

Not only Indonesian labourers pose a threat to our local labour markets, the intrusion of skilled workforce from the peninsula are also a threat to the citizens of Sarawak, which deprived us of our opportunities to secure good employment especially in the oils and gas industries. This is very prominent in the case of MLNG, ABF and oil palm plantations where top jobs are dominated by semenanjung people. Others includes such areas as teaching profession, police force and the military.

What jobs are left for us, the Sarawak citizens? Obviously, we don’t have much choices, but to work as labourers (kerja kontrak or berkuli dengan Cina) on a daily rate basis, and this accounts for a large number of local workforce. Others might be farmers by tradition, fisherman and other odd jobs. Some who are lucky enough might be able to secure better jobs such as clerks, teachers, police, doctors, lawyers, but too few.

Where is justice? There’s a proverb “Anak kera disusukan, anak sendiri mati kelaparan”, which match our present situation in Sarawak. People, wake up from your sleep, it’s time to realize your destiny.

Lousy services at post office

Probably you have experienced the worst encounter when dealing or having some businesses at the post office, be it in Bintulu or anywhere in Sarawak. The service is so lousy that, I swear, if possible, I would never ever deal with this department for the rest of my life.

Today, I went there at about 10 o'clock for some businesses. There's quite a number of people who came earlier than me. I took my number and just like the others stood to wait for my turn, as the seats were all occupied. There were probably around 60-70 people at that particular time. After a good three and a half hours of waiting, finally my turn came. Then, I went off at about 1:30 pm feeling relieve and free.

As you would probably know, there are six (6) counters at Bintulu post office. But, only two (2) were opened and serving the public. The other counters were left unmanned and no staff were attending. Was it due to shortage of staff, I wondered. If it was, then it's not a good excuse. Sarawak has plenty of SPM and STPM school leavers or even graduates. Why don't they recruit more staff to fill up these vacancies, so as to improve it's lousy services and reduce unemployment.

If one day, if it is inevitable for you to go there, I would advise you to bring along your pillows, so that you could catch a good sleep while waiting for your turns. From my experience, the average waiting period is about 3-4 hours, and a bit longer during peak hours. That's enough time for you to travel from Bintulu to Miri or Bintulu to Sibu.

From my observations, there’s hardly any suggestion box around where people could channel feedbacks on matters related to the services. Personally, I feel that, they should set up counters specially for people to claim their petrol subsidy, instead of putting together with other service counters. This would minimize the queue.

Looks like the postmaster is not doing anything to improve the quality of service of his department, instead just sitting comfortably in his fully air-conditioned office waiting for the clock to strike 5. If he can’t handle the situations or unable to bring some improvements, it's better for him to relinquish his job and let someone else takes over.

 

 

Indonesian gangsters in Bintulu

Shocked by this reality?    You might ask, how the hell did foreign gangsters existed here?    Well, this is not a myth, the element do exist.     These gangsters are not the organised crimes, like the one being cleaned by Datuk Tiong previously.    These gangsters are the illegal immigrants who have been overstaying illegally here.    Most have connections with the remnants of the ex-Chinese gangsters.    There are few groups which operated and controlled certain area of Bintulu town.    The area of activities includes, but not limited to drug pushing, controlling of prostitutions, snatching and robbery cases.

There has been cases of fightings and killings happening around town recently.    According to some reliable sources, the fightings and killings were as a result of territorial disputes amongst these gangs.    There's also a frequent cases of snatching and robberies, purportedly committed by these gangs.

Looks like there are no safety and security in this town nowadays, which demands the citizens of Bintulu to be more careful.    Judging from the present situations, the police seems to overlook this matter or should I say that the police are not doing their duties.