By Lian Cheng
KUCHING, July 28: Santubong MP Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar says the federal government has been milking Sarawak to materialise its Peninsular Malaysia-centric development vision.
Citing the Twin Towers, the Light Rail Transit projects and other mega projects in Klang Valley, Wan Junaidi said the federal government has been taking from other less developed states such as Sarawak and Sabah which are rich in resources to create greater urbanisation in Klang Valley and other cities in Peninsular Malaysia.
“Sarawak is their milking cow. While they are willing to spend billions in building up Klang Valley, we cannot even get RM500 million budgeted in 2017 for 2018 to partially rehabilitate some of our dilapidated schools.”
“And now, with Penang requesting for RM20 billion to build LRT, if the federal government approves it, that means it is purposely ignoring our needs and continuing its agenda of robbing Sarawak and Sabah to develop the highly development states in Peninsular Malaysia,” Wan Junaidi told DayakDaily.
He said such an agenda is against the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) and the Federal Constitution which states that the federal government must assist Sarawak and Sabah to develop, which was the main reason why the two entities were willing to join to form Federation of Malaysia in 1963.
“These are some of the points I wanted to bring forth when I was asked to speak at ‘Economic Symposium’ in Parliament recently.
“It was also my intention to remind Putrajaya to address the needs and to eradicate poverty in the less developed states to meet the Millennium Development Goal set by the United Nations. But my slot was cancelled.”
Wan Junaidi expressed his great disappointment in how resources, especially those from Sarawak have been used to boost development in Peninsular Malaysia while Sarawak and Sabah, which contributed tremendously as resource-rich states have been treating unfairly by receiving crumbles from the table.
“Success of Wawasan 2020 cannot be measured based on development in Klang Valley, Johore and Penang while ignoring what is happening on in Kapit, Song, Belaga and Simunjan,” he said.
“It is measured by even development across the nation where everyone is accessible to equal socio-economic opportunities,” he said.
He said petroleum and petroleum products contributes as much as 30 per cent of Malaysia’s GDP and a large part of the 30 per cent is from Sarawak’s and Sabah’s oil and gas.
“And based on MA63 and the Federal Constitution, Putrajaya has the obligation to develop Sarawak and Sabah,” said Wan Junaidi.— DayakDaily
