Time for Sabah politicians to stand up to federal bullying

 

After the second extension of the current movement control order (MCO) left many businesses and communities on the edge, Sabah chief minister Hajiji Noor declared the state would allow certain economic and social activities to resume.

Hajiji was told by defence minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob to follow the same SOPs set by the National Security Council (MKN). After the dressing down, cartoons depicting Hajiji as a kerbau (water buffalo) being pulled by the nose started circulating.

Ismail Sabri’s insult did not go down well with Sabahans, including political leaders across the divide, and many have rallied behind Hajiji. For the first time, state leaders from both the ruling coalition and the opposition have spoken out against Ismail Sabri’s arrogance. There is now a call from certain quarters to bar him from the state.

While it’s good that Sabah’s political leaders are waking up and rallying against federal control of Sabah and Sarawak, they must continuously send a message that Sabah is not a mere kerbau that must do the central government’s bidding.

Under Hajiji’s leadership, state minister and Covid-19 spokesman Masidi Manjun has done well in bringing the Covid-19 numbers down. Indeed, Sabah has done better than most states in keeping the numbers under control.

The federal government’s premise of one size fits all is an amateurish way of dealing with the pandemic. While the federal ministers are in their protective cocoons and sitting in comfort, continuously breaking SOPs, collecting their salaries and allowances, many people are waving the white flag at their front gates.

Instead of “turun padang” to be with the people, ministers have the privilege of dining in restaurants and even sending their children overseas. This also reflects badly on our education system. Students in Sabah are not so lucky. They have to cross hills, valleys and rivers to get to rural schools. Some even have to climb trees to connect to the internet to access their school work.

Sabahans are tired of the federal government milking our oil resources and our tax revenues and getting back little in return. This is why Sabah has remained poor all these years and holds the record as the state with the highest poverty rate in Malaysia.

During the last election, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin promised Sabah the sky if we would fall in line with the federal government. Now that the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) government is in power, its leaders have fallen into the same federal trap as before. Is there any point, therefore, in complaining?

You knew that if you voted to support Muhyiddin, this would happen. So no regrets.

On the SOP issue, GRS component parties Umno, PBS and SAPP are acting like opposition parties and disagreeing with the federal stance. It would be good if they could continue with the same momentum to get back the states’ rights instead of uniting only on this one issue.

Parties like SAPP and STAR in the GRS coalition, whose leaders were for many years in opposition to federal control, must continue to speak up and make demands and not just be seat warmers.

Now that they are speaking in one voice, Sabah leaders should demand that the central government increase oil royalties and return other benefits to the state as provided for in the Malaysia Agreement 1963.

Our health in this pandemic situation should not be decided by one person such as Ismail Sabri using emergency powers. Elected leaders from Sabah and Sarawak who know their constituencies well should be part of the committee to guide the health ministry towards a targeted solution for each state or area.

A blanket solution is not the answer. Sabah cannot be blamed for the high number of Covid cases in Selangor and made to suffer a cookie cutter federal strategy.

Sabah leaders should not be excited by meaningless words such as “equal partners” or that we are now a “wilayah”. They should be focusing on revenue and autonomy so that we can find a Sabah solution and not a federal solution towards “shared prosperity”. Sabah is already sharing its valuable oil resources to the tune of billions of ringgit with other states and the current shared prosperity will make Sabah even poorer.

The federal government should revert health and education back to the state as Sabah authorities at state and district levels can manage better because they have the local knowledge.

Health and education should not be controlled by a central government thousands of kilometres across the South China Sea. Leaders in Putrajaya have little understanding of the plight of the people in Sabah. Many Sabahans, for instance, do not have the luxury to check into a hospital for a simple case of “cirit berit”.

On Thursday, there was a strong police presence at Padang Merdeka in Kota Kinabalu as news got around in social media that there would be a protest against the government’s handling of the pandemic.

Instead of deploying police to such an event, it would be better for Ismail Sabri to deploy the police and our armed forces to go from house to house to check on the welfare of citizens.

Despite the many billions supposedly dished out to make the government look good – as if it is doing us a favour – there are many people out there who have not received the government’s assistance. Flying the white flag is good for the urban areas, but it’s useless in a remote and rural setting where you are miles away from civilisation/ - FMT 

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.

✍ Credit given to the original owner of this post : ☕ Malaysians Must Know the TRUTH

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