By Lian Cheng
KUCHING, Jan 21: Local Government and Housing Minister Datuk Seri Professor Dr Sim Kui Hian claims that the federal government does not only not answer calls but also has the tendency of losing documents.
Dr Sim believes that it could the handiwork of the ‘little napoleons’.
“In the past, when we had no money, we used to call Kuala Lumpur. When we called Kuala Lumpur, they complained. When we said, ‘you took RM200 million per day from us’, then they said, ’ok, ok’, then gave us some.
“Nowadays when we call Kuala Lumpur, they not only don’t answer, sometimes, they even said we didn’t submit,” said Dr Sim at the Ministry’s Chinese New Year Media Nite on Monday evening (Jan 20, 2020) at a local restaurant here.
On June 24, 2019, Federal Housing and Local Government Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin had complained that Sarawak had yet to submit land for affordable housing projects.
Zuraida was quoted saying that all other states in the country had given the identified land except Sarawak.
On the same day, Dr Sim instantly replied that during Zuraida’s last visit to Sarawak, the Housing Development Corporation had presented to her ministry 10 pieces of state land spanning a total of 1,223 acres throughout Sarawak to build about 12,000 units of affordable houses.
Dr Sim, however, stated that Sarawak did not care about the blame game but was focused on moving forward.
“For us, not only (we are) moving forward, we are sharing Sarawak’s property with all the anak-anak Sarawak. Otherwise, how can we give Unifor (Unit for Other Religions) funding of RM50 million per year?
“And (apart from) RM50 million for Unifor funding, the (allocation for) longhouse loan this year is also RM50 million,” said Dr Sim who is also Batu Kawa assemblyman.
He said in 2018, the federal government was supposed to give Sarawak RM20 million for a longhouse loan. However, the federal government did not do so until 2019, where the allocation was cut down to RM10 million.
“And Sarawak government decided that we will do it ourselves, so RM50 million (allocation) this year for longhouse loan, managed by the (State) Housing Ministry,” said Dr Sim. —DayakDaily
