Fwd: Lajim is grateful for the Dog's Leftover to Sabah

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Ir. Hj. Othman bin Ahmad" <othm...@lycos.com>
Date: Jun 23, 6:07 pm
Subject: Lajim is grateful for the Dog's Leftover to Sabah
To: soc.culture.malaysia

Lajim is grateful for the underdevelopment of Sabah to the extent that
Sabah is now among the poorest in the whole world. I don't think the
federal government is happy until Sabah is absolutely the poorest in
the whole world with the current budget allocation.

With only RM50 million per year for Sabah's roads, that is more than
25% the size of the whole of Malaysia, which is less than 1% of the
National budget for Road Development, the road to Sandakan City, with
a population of more than 100,000, and the largest producer of Palm
Oil in Malaysia but among the poorest in the whole world, with roads
that are much worse than those going to Batak Regioins of Indonesia,
that I visited more than 20 years ago.

Even 20 years ago, Indonesia is full of big buildings, much more than
those in Sabah. Similarly for Manila. If you watch discovery channels
of places that we thought were poor such as Rwanda, Somalia, it is
obvious that their houses are much better and larger than most of the
houses in Sabah, that are still full of rusty zinc roofs, even right
in the city centres.

Is there any promise of addressing the situation? NONE whatsover so
why should Lajim be happy about NOTHING.

The budget remains less than 13% or 25% that Sabah deserves, at least
to take into account of its size and population. Any less, will mean a
further deterioration of the economy of Sabahans.

There is no promise to REDUCE POVERTY!!! Only HARDCORE poverty, by
giving them zinc roofs. Many Sabahans are not even qualified despite
having no income, nobody else to support them, just because they look
healthy but heavily in debt, tying to set up shops among the poorest
people that cannot even pay their rice.

In the case of Doni, the primary school boy that committed suicide
because of hardcore poverty, despite having no father, a sick mother,
with many more brothers and sisters, and given only RM60 per month by
the state government welfare. The federal government does not even
bother to help despite garnering 95% of Sabah's revenue.

Unfortunately Filipinoes get the most help because they know how to
pretend to be poor by not even bothering to look after their healths
or look for jobs or businesses.

Lajim may look wealthy because of the portions of the inadequate
budget allocation for Sabah but he is surrounded by poor people that
he can easily bribe or threaten. Just look at Zimbabwe. Despite the
whole nation crumbling to dust, Mugabe is still very rich, and still
get much support from armed men, that he paid to steal from the
majority of the masses.

This is the reason why the GINI(income gap) for Malaysia is the
highest in South East Asia, among the highest in Asia, second only to
Papua New Guinea. Lajim driving his luxury cars, while Doni's family
were given only RM60 per month, with little chance of business or
job,simply because there is no business in Sabah due to the lack of
investment.

The budget is so pitiful inadequate that in order to survive,
contractors in Sabah had to resort to cheap foreign labourers that are
underpaid and discriminated, from the poorest regions on earth such as
Timor-timor and Myanmar. Even here the specifications had to be
dewatered to the point that road thickness that require 6 inches were
only built as 3 inches.

I heard about these stories more than 10 years ago but dismiss them as
unlikely until I read the budget allocations for Sabah that is way
below our load in terms of population and area. Despite what I had
pointed out, people like Lajim still do not even bother to look into.

Lajim is an uneducated person. He does not even know how to count.
Percentages are meaningless to him. No wonder he is happy to be given
only Dog's leftover.

Lajim: Be grateful for Sabah progress

SUNGAI PETANI: Sabah could not have achieved progress today without
adequate financial help from the Federal Government, said Beaufort MP
Datuk Seri Lajim Ukin.

Hitting out at the Sabah Progressive Party's planned vote of no-
confidence against Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, he
said SAPP president Datuk Yong Teck Lee should be thankful for the
efforts taken by Barisan Nasional in developing Sabah.

He said the people would not forget that when Parti Bersatu Sabah
pulled out from Barisan in 1990, development in Sabah was affected and
funds from the Federal Government were not readily available.

"People must realise that it will be a loss for the people of Sabah if
we go on fighting with the Federal Government," he said.

"We have UMS (Universiti Sabah Malaysia), a RM20bil allocation under
the Ninth Malaysia Plan, a RM1bil allocation announced by the Prime
Minister during his recent visit to Sabah and RM1.76bil in soft loans.

"Where did all the money come from if not from the Federal Government?

"We must be thankful for this and continue to give our support to the
Federal Government," Lajim, who is also Deputy Transport Minister,
said after opening a state-level campaign at Dataran MPSP to encourage
the wearing of rear seat belts and crash helmets here on Saturday.