KUCHING, Sept 30: Deputy Minister of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Chong Chieng Jen is urging state ministers and elected reps from Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) to forward to him details of approved federal projects that had been cancelled following the change of government.
This is so that he could personally bring them up to the attention of Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng for reconsideration.
“For the GPS elected reps and ministers, they must have all the specific details (and paperwork) of the projects. They can forward to me all these projects with the relevant titles and correspondence. I will make sure that I personally see Lim Guan Eng for the projects to be considered or continued.
“If they can’t produce them, it means they are just lying,” he told a press conference here this afternoon.
Chong was responding to a statement by Santubong MP Dato Sri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar yesterday. Wan Junaidi had said that many development projects in the state that had been approved at the federal level had been cancelled due to the high national debt.
Chong said to his knowledge, the only approved projects that had to be cancelled were the ECRL project, the MRT3 project and the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High-Speed Rail project, all in the peninsula.
“Wan Junaidi and a lot of other GPS elected reps, as well, have claimed that a lot of approved projects by the federal government have been cancelled.
“For the benefit of Sarawak and Sarawakians, I urge them to give me details of every single project at the stage of approval and whether funds have been channelled so that I can go to the federal government to request for the continued implementation of the projects.
“Many a time, the so-called approvals by the Barisan Nasional (BN) previously are just empty promises. That is why you get earth-breaking ceremonies for certain projects to be done in almost every election, but the projects never take off. That is what a lot of the BN so-called approved projects are,” said Chong.
He said if Wan Junaidi dared to make such allegations, then he would have all the details and paperwork to back them up. — DayakDaily
