KUCHING, Jan 12: Sarawak United Peoples’ Party’s (SUPP) Stakan is requesting for an additional councillor in the Kota Samarahan Municipal Council (MPKS) and in the Padawan Municipal Council (MPP) to better serve the people there.
Its chairman Sim Kiang Chiok made the plea so that the party could reach out to more people, especially to voters in Stakan.
“We seek this, to better cover our high density hyper growth area especially on Jalan Dato Haji Musa between the Unimas (University Malaysia Sarawak) roundabout and the Sg Kuap Bridge.
“Large numbers of young Chinese choose to purchase their first homes in these growth areas, bringing a migration of voters from Padungan, Pending, Batu Lintang, Batu Kawah and Tupong, even from Sibu.
“In the past three years, we have found that the increase in number of Chinese residences did not tally with the number of voters.
“This is because these voters have not changed their voting addresses and are still voting in their old districts.
“Eventually there will be some that switch voting areas because of a change in the identification card address but mostly the non-Bumiputera votes will remain at between 10-15 per cent of the registered voters in our constituency,” he noted.
Sim made these remarks during the launching of SUPP Stakan’s office along the 9th Mile Kuching-Serian road here today.
He disclosed that the primary role of the office is to serve the residents there as well as to provide support for coalition leaders from Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) namely Datuk Seri Ali Mahmud, who is Stakan assemblyman and Rubiah Wang who is Kota Samarahan MP.
Sim added, “SUPP Stakan is motivated to help all Sarawakians through better addressing the 7Cs.
“The 7C are Cost of living, Crime reduction, Corruption eradication, Cronyism and nepotism, Con-jobs or the lies in the Internet, Chinese and English education especially the recognition of Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) and Council service improvement,” he revealed.
Additionally, Sim observed that in the last General Election (GE14), SUPP did not do well in most of the non-Bumiputera areas.
However, he noted that Rubiah had defended her seat with an increased majority despite the mood for change.
Sim said, “I see it as our mission to try and reach (out to) these areas and increase the voting percentage to help our incumbent YB Datuk Seri Ali Mahmud win and win big.
“When we began on 11th December 2016, we decided early that we wanted to be able to help our demographics.
“So in Stakan, most of the non-Bumiputera are business people from various fields and we started our service in Stakan with the awareness campaign for micro loans that were available to non-Bumiputera.
“The micro loans scheme is done in cooperation with the Kuching-Kota Samarahan Hawkers Association,” he shared.
Sim pointed out that the service centre in Stakan will be able to introduce the new micro loan initiative which was approved by the state government in November 2019.
He shared that the service centre has also distributed loan forms to Bumiputera entrepreneurs and SUPP members so that they can chose to apply should they need to or pass the form along to a friend who may need it.
“Our goal then was to break the ice with the locals and spread the (news of the) good programme of the government to our area,” he shared.
As for the new Stakan branch office, Sim added that it will also serve as the branch’s nerve centre.
“With the frontal positioning to the Serian-Kuching road, we are going to do more advertising of these GPS milestones with our banner frame besides the usual seasonal greetings,” he disclosed.
Meanwhile, SUPP Stakan secretary Sivanesan Sanmugalingam revealed that most of the members of the branch are new members.
He also revealed that the new Stakan office is the 56th branch office for SUPP, and that the launching of the new office was to reach out to Stakan residents, as especially the Chinese, to better communicate the state government’s policies to the people there.
Among those present during the launch were SUPP president Datuk Seri Dr Sim Kui Hian, SUPP secretary-general Datuk Sebastian Ting, political secretary to the Chief Minister Tan Kai, SUPP Women chief Kho Teck Wan, SUPP Stakan members and SUPP members from various branches. — DayakDaily
