KUCHING, March 24: The Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) government should eliminate wasteful spending during this critical time such as the RM600 million used for building the new complex for the Padawan Municipal Council (MPP).
Instead, the amount used for the building of the complex should be put to good use for developing other most needed infrastructure.
Democratic Action Party (DAP) Sarawak member Michael Kong, who is also special assistant to Chong Chieng Jen, pointed this out considering that there were increasing numbers of bankruptcies triggered by Covid-19 pandemic in Malaysia including Sarawak.
“The Sarawak government was quick to praise the Federal government (and at the same time patting themselves on their own back) for the RM2.95 billion paid by Petronas to Sarawak in September 2020.
“(But) till now, we have yet to see any of this money being utilised effectively to assist Sarawakians particularly those with low and middle incomes,” he said in a statement today.
Observing that there was an increase in the number of notices of Bankruptcy Order recently, Kong emphasised that this situation showed that many people were suffering despite the National Prihatin initiatives rolled out by the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government which aims to provide some form of financial support to cushion the impact of the pandemic on the people in the past one year.
“When a person is made bankrupt (and most of the time, this is the breadwinner of a household), the problem is sure to bring about more problems including mental health issues.
“At every turn, we see small businesses failing and closing down. We hear stories of how family members lose their jobs and end up having to rely on donations to put food on the table.
“On top of that, the occasional floods also caused additional heartache as properties and personal belongings were damaged and yet at the same time, these people have no money to replace the necessities,” he said.
As such, Kong urged people to look around and judge for themselves how this “Prihatin” (caring) PN government has been performing over the past year. – DayakDaily
