KUCHING, Dec 13: Sarawakians are more than capable of serving in the Sarawak police force.
This was said by Parti Bumi Kenyalang (PBK) president Voon Lee Shan who echoed unhappy sentiments from retired senior police officers who opined that Sarawakians should be allowed to serve their own people and State and called for the Sarawak Constabulary to be restored.
In a press statement, Voon said although there were many Sarawakian police officers good enough to be Commissioner of Police for Sarawak, they were never considered, and the post was filled by police officers from Peninsular Malaysia instead.
He said there are too many non-Sarawakian police officers in the State, and many of them have a poor command of English and can hardly understand the local Malay dialect — making it difficult for locals to communicate with them to lodge reports.
“In the past sixty years, it was observed that there were only two Sarawakians to have held this post. They were the late Tan Sri Hamdan Sirat and Datuk Awang Ehsan. The latter only served as Commissioner of Police for a short period before he retired,” he said.
He went on to say that when Hamdan retired, Datuk Aba Robiyel Huk should have taken over but was bypassed.
“The government even bypassed the late Datuk Ramsay Jitam, a native, who was already the Deputy Commissioner of Police, to become the Police Commissioner of Sarawak.
“Not long ago, another Deputy Commissioner of Police, Dato Dr Chai Khin Chung, who holds a doctorate degree, has also never been promoted to hold the post of Commissioner of Police of Sarawak before he retired.
“Now, the present Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mancha Ata, is a Dayak, but will he ever be considered to hold the Commissioner of Police of Sarawak? Many Sarawakians have doubts unless a miracle happens within the unity government,” he said. — DayakDaily
