To the Police, conduct a thorough investigations..

The following news was extracted from The Borneo Post Online on January 29, 2009 issue.


Son tells how dad was shot dead
By Gaing Kunding

DALAT: A son of a bomoh (shaman) who was shot dead here last Sunday evening described how his father fell down to a single bullet in front of the family.

“My father looked momentarily stunned when the intruder fired at him, then fell lifelessly down in a heap right in front of my mother and their grandchildren,” Limai Sakim, 60, said when met at his house at Kampung Sungai Ud, Dalat here yesterday.

Limai is the son of Sakim Edin, 79, the village’s medicine man who was shot at point black by an intruder around 12 midnight, Sunday.

Recalling the incident, Limai described how his father was awoken by a window that was apparently forced open.

He got up to check, he added.

“My father must have seen the intruder pointing a gun at him. He did look like he wanted to run for his life but as soon as his made a turn to escape, the shot rang out.

“For a split second, my father stood rooted to ground, expressionless, and then fell in a heap, lifeless.

Limai said the bullet got his father on the back of his neck and it instantly killed him.

The gunshot woke everybody up, he said, adding that they rushed to the old man who did not get to say a single parting word.

Limai said he and other members of the family could not recall any incident that could have led to the fatal shooting, adding his late father had not acted in any way strange as even a day before his death, he was performing traditional medication on one person who had come to him for help.

He said a pair of slippers and a spanner were recovered just outside the same window.

“We have handed over the slippers and spanner to the police to facilitate their investigation,” he said.

Limai, who is the village headman, also said a cupboard at their living room was also at the end of a bullet.

He described his father’s death as the most brutal murder in the history of Dalat, in fact in the whole of Mukah Division.

“Killing is not the best way of settling any problem or difference. It will in fact lead to many more problems in future.

“My family is open to discussion with others who may have different opinions. I think the killer is insane,” said Limai.

Meanwhile Sakim’s body has been sent to Sibu Hospital for a post- mortem.

When contacted, a spokesperson for the Dalat police, in confirming the case, said as at press time yesterday no arrest was made.

“We are still investigating the case thoroughly and have yet to identify the suspect as well as the motive of the killing,” said the spokesperson.

Throughout the interview, Limai was accompanied by his younger siblings Merting and Jelita.

I would like to call upon the police to conduct a thorough investigation into the above case, the culprit(s) must not be let free. The criminal(s) must be inhuman for slaughtering an old man of that age. We condemn such act as devilish.

Kita perlukan perubahan - Dalat/Oya/Mukah/Balingian

Adakah anda berpuas hati dengan keadaan dan pembangunan di kawasan anda? Apakah yang ada di bandar anda? Adakah cukup peluang pekerjaan seperti di bandar bandar lain? Dengan kata lain, apakah yang telah dilakukan oleh wakil rakyat di kawasan anda untuk menaikkan taraf kehidupan rakyat di kawasan anda? Saya rasa tidak banyak yang telah disumbangkan atau dilakukan oleh wakil rakyat anda. Sudah 2 kali pilihanraya, wakil rakyat anda menang tanpa bertanding. Mungkin disebabkan hal tersebut, wakil rakyat tersebut tidak ambil peduli untuk menjalankan tugas beliau dengan baik. Nampaknya, beliau sedang tidur nyenyak dibuai mimpi.

Kawasan Dalat/Oya/Mukah/Balingian adalah kawasan "comfort zone" bagi BN. Jika seekor anjing diletakkan di kawasan tersebut atas tiket BN untuk bertanding dalam mana mana pilihanraya pun boleh menang dengan majority besar.

Nampaknya, pemikiran rakyat di kawasan ini masih cetek dan konservatif. Mereka takut menempuhi perubahan, perubahan dari segi pemimpin. Mereka terlalu selesa dengan kehidupan yang dipinggirkan. Sikap rakyat yang tidak ambil peduli menambahkan kemalasan wakit rakyat.

Minda rakyat kelas bawahan yang telah ditekan oleh kerajaan BN selama bertahun tahun yang lepas akan mengambil masa yang lama untuk berubah atau dipulihkan. Bagi mereka, lambang dacing adalah segalanya, tetapi mereka tidak sedar bahawa mereka telah dipinggirkan dari segi pembangunan dan peluang kehidupan yang lebih bermutu tinggi.

Saya berasa kasihan dan kecewa melihat anak anak muda generasi baru pun turut terikut ikut dengan minda kelas bawahan ini walaupun mereka lebih terpelajar. Saya berharap anak anak muda ini dapat bangkit mewakili generasi baru untuk menghentikan penindasan tersebut dan keluar dari perangkap penipuan korporat kerajaan BN.

Kita memerlukan beberapa intelek intelek muda untuk merintis jalan ke arah pembebasan tersebut. Tetapi di manakah mereka? Berapa ramai kah intelek intelek muda tersebut yang sanggup mengorbankan kerjaya mereka demi membela nasib anak bangsa sendiri?

Terdapat juga beberapa percubaan anak anak muda setempat dalam pilihanraya yang lepas untuk memecah monopoli kerajaan BN, tetapi semuanya gagal. Sudah pastilah kegagalan ini berpunca dari kekuatan BN yang senantiasa memanipulasikan minda rakyat kelas bawahan dengan janji janji kosong mereka. Tetapi sekarang tengoklah, siapa yang rugi. Sudah tentu rakyat sendiri. Rakyat tidak mendapat balasan yang setimpal dengan kesetiaan yang ditunjukkan oleh mereka selama ini.

Jadi sebagai rakyat yang menderita dan tertindas, kita perlukan perubahan. Kita benar benar memerlukan perubahan dari segi kepimpinan supaya kita dapat menikmati pembangunan yang sewajarnya kita nikmati. Bagaimana caranya kita boleh mencapai impian tersebut? Cara nya mudah sahaja, kita cuma perlu membuat pilihan yang tepat pada pilihanraya akan datang dan membuat perubahan drastik.

School children paying unnecessary fees

I would like to highlight the plight of one of my neighbours. This is regarding his inability to pay the expenses of his 5 school going children. He is just a mechanic earning a monthly income of just slightly over one thousand. It is indeed a big headache for him. Needless for me to say more, if you have children going to school, you should know how does it feel. He did mentioned to me how hard it is for him, having to spend at least RM300-RM400 for 1 school going child. Just imagine multiply this amount by 5!!!

Nowadays, a student is obliged to pay an average fee of RM100++. This amount is inclusive of all the fees and cost of stuff such as T-shirt, track suit, excercise books and others. It would be amateur for me to list all the items one by one.

Talking about the fees, I found that most of them are not relevant and unnecessary. What has happened to the fund allocated by the ministry to each schools? Where does this fund goes to? Why should they impose extra fees, when there are allocations especially for each schools?

Stuff such as excercise books, track suit, t-shirt just to name a few, are mandatory to be bought from the school and the prices are much higher than those sold in the shops. In the olden days, during our school days, these stuff were for us to opt to buy direct from the shops at a lower prices. Why is it that mandatory to get it from the school? I suspect that, the departments concerned must have some interest on the dealings with the supplier for the supply of these stuff, if not why should they make it mandatory for the student to get from the school.

Even school magazines are sold at an exorbitantly high prices. If you turn the pages of school magazines, you would surely found out that there are lots of advertisements. And these advertisements are not FREE!!! Full page advertisements could cost the advertisers thousands of dollars. Don't tell me that the income from these advertisements are not enough to cover the cost of printing of these school magazines.

Looks like the schools nowadays are more concerned about making profits than educating our future generations. There are no more values in our present education system, it is not surprising nowadays even form five student doesn't know how to spell their own names. And no wonder there are less Sarawakian kids going to universities compared to semenanjung. In olden days, even primary six pupils are qualified to be teachers, and back then, there were less corruptions.

Changes In Malaysia

Nowadays, in Malaysia, especially among bloggers, everybody is talking about changes. They talk about political changes, leadership changes and eventually, governmental changes. Thus far there has been more talks and criticisms than actual actions, with the exceptions of Anwar Ibrahim. No doubt, other than DSAI, they are not in the position to or having the accessibility to effect that changes. DSAI have tried, but pitifully have failed.

Except for DSAI, in order to achieve these changes, what have they done? What are the contigency plans that they have worked out in order to bring about these changes? Changes cannot be effected by mere talks and criticizing. Changes needs all the proper planning, organisation and immediate implementation, in short summarized as"ACTIONS".

Yes, we look forward to see these changes and eagerly waiting to celebrate their success. Question is. will that dream becomes reality for us and a nightmare for those currently in power? How soon will that happen? Who will spearhead these changes? Do we still trust DSAI to lead us towards these changes? If so, how committed is he? Does DSAI have any other hidden agendas? What actually are his motives? Revenge? Personal glory? Self political gains?

However, interesting to note that, leadership changes does not necessarily means changes in the ruling coalition. Leadership changes does not mean PR taking over Malaysian parliament from BN. Leadership changes may means that the old and season leaders giving way to the much younger talents and caliber to lead.

Malaysian leaders like to show off

Malaysia has been very generous in terms of aids to much poorer countries all this while. Every now and then we would hear news of tragedy and misfortune struck countries around us. And each time, Malaysia has never failed in giving aids whenever these tragedies occurred. Is this our obligations? Is this deeds of donations at the expenses of the Rakyat really praiseworthy? Do you think so?

For me, I personally do not think so!!! It’s just a mere act of seeking attention and praises (in Malay it’s called “minta puji”). Our leaders are doing it just for the sake of “minta puji” from the communities of the world!

The culture of giving does not necessarily mean we will be repaid later. Malaysia has wasted biilions of dollars in aids to other countries which are of the same level as Malaysia in terms of developments. When you look at the development in our country, especially so in Sarawak, we are actually in desperate need of this money. And yet Malaysia has given a considerable sum of money away. I am of the opinion that, this fund would be better off, had it been used to build better infrastructures, schools, creation of new jobs for the people and so forth. Our leaders must have forgotten about the proverbs that their ancestors has created, “Anak kera di hutan disusukan, anak sendiri mati kelaparan”.

I think, we, especially Sarawakian, deserves to know why Malaysia has become a welfare country since most of the revenues were extracted from the soil of Sarawak. Our leaders owed us an explaination. And that explaination must be done in a sincere manner so as to eliminate doubts within us.

Counter-post on "Government servant in Sarawak not well paid?"

On second thought, I'd like to retract my initial views on this issue.

Probably, I was wrong when I said that they are not well paid. I came up to that conclusion much too early. Being someone who has no interest in government jobs, I tend to compare the government staff salary with that of those who works in a private company. I may have overlooked the extra benefits that government staff received in their entire terms of service.

Yes. They are actually OVERPAID. Overpaid in the sense that, they work less for that amount of salary. If you have to really calculate their actuall working days, their working days are way too short. As per my comparision below:

Private Company :
Normal Working hours : 8 hrs x 22 days = 176 hrs
Saturday : 4 hrs x 4 days = 16 hrs
Total working hrs in a mth = 192 hrs @ 24 days

Government staff :
Normal Working hours : 7.5 hrs x 22 days = 165 hrs
Less daily tea break : 2 hrs x 22 days - 44 hrs
Total working hrs in a mth = 121 hrs @ 15.1 days

From the above simple analysis, we can draw up a conclusion that government servants only work 6 months in a year...isn't that not overpaid?

Social injustice in the workplace

This is an old issue. Nevertheless, I still want to highlight it here for us to give a thought.

If you have been working with a private company owned by non-bumis or in a government office headed by non-bumi bosses, I think you would probably have known very well what is meant by social injustice in the workplace. Racial discrimination prevails, but the authority seems to close one eye. Examples of publicly demonstrated discrimination, but not limited to:

Treatment

When the boss is a non-bumi, surely the non-bumi staff are well treated. The boss would treat his staff like his own brothers and the bumiputera staff are sidelined. Furthermore, they are also very good at polishing their boss’s balls.

Benefits / Promotions

This is an area where our bumiputera staff are being critically neglected and sidelined. If you are to compare the contributions of bumiputera staff against non-bumi staff in any organization, there are no differences at all. They all contributed to the similar percentage of the cakes. Then, the questions is why non-bumi staff got better benefits and enjoy better promotion chances as compared to bumiputeras? Yet, the bumiputeras are the indigenous people who have all the rights to these social justice?

Displinary

Again, this is another area of concern amongst bumiputera staff. When the non-bumi staff committed grave disciplinary offences, they seems to get pardoned easily compared to bumiputera staff who must adhere strictly to the company’s rules and regulations. In another terms, non-bumi staff working in an organization headed by a non-bumi is being protected and treated well.

When will this nepotisme / aristocratic practices vanish from our beloved Sarawak land? When will somebody be daring enough to stand up against all these racial discrimination and social injustices in our workplace?

All races whose roots existed from the soil of Sarawak are considered natives. But,why can’t we become a united Sarawakian and not follow whatever practices they have in semenanjung? Why can’t we be Sarawakian Malaysian, whereby we don’t diffentiate ourselves by race and creed. Why can’t we be one and not divide ourselves by our colours

Government servant in Sarawak not well paid?

Government servant in Sarawak not well paid?    Is this true?   Maybe yes!!

I did came across some government servants who are doing part time business during office hours.    This reflects the integrity of the department concerned, as the Malay saying goes “Kerana nila setitik, rosak susu sebelanga”.    Yes, due to the bad practices of one or two staff, the good image of the department concerned was besmirched.

Nevermind those who are doing their business after office hours, not so much of a concerned, as the government did encourage it’s staff looking for extra income.   This fact once again, supports the claim that, government servant in Sarawak are not well paid.

Again, nevermind those who are doing legal business to earn side income.   What becomes the concern of all is that, some might turn to bribery in order to get extra income.    This is most rampant in such departments as the police, immigration, jpj, customs, puspakom, bda just to name a few.   In fact, bribery practices happens everyday right in front of the public, committed by the most respected profession in the government.

This is thing is just going bad to worst when our Malaysian economy is being affected by the current economic recessions, even though not as bad as during the 1990s.