Sabah CM slams assemblymen over poverty eradication efforts

Two new assemblymen came under fire from Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman, who told them to “do their homework first” before raising issues in the state assembly.

During supplementary question time, Chan Foong Him (DAP-Sri Tanjung) and Wong Hung Jun (DAP-Likas) had sought a year-by-year breakdown of details regarding the state government’s poverty eradication efforts since 2009.

At this juncture, Musa stood and said: “Do you know the numerous poverty eradication schemes we have initiated? Have you bothered to find out?

“Have you visited the rural areas, the villages where we have these programmes going? If not, you are naive.”

Answering another supplementary question earlier from Datuk Seri Wilfred Bumburing (PKR-Tamparuli), Musa said the state government had no intention to do away with issuance of community titles for rural communities instead of conventional titles.

He said communal titles enabled rural folk to own the land they had been occupying and hand it down to future generations without being able to sell them.

“This is important. The practice of successive state governments – Usno, Berjaya and Parti Bersatu Sabah – was to give out individual titles and much of the land ended up in the hands of big companies and towkays.”

Responding to Wilfred’s original question, he said 8,115 individuals had so far benefitted from the issuance of 62 communal titles involving 33,420ha of land at 155 villages.

Separately, seven of the 12 Opposition assemblymen had formally notified the House of their decision to make Datuk Lajim Ukin (PKR-Klias) their chief.

Assembly Speaker Datuk Salleh Tun Said said he had received letters from Lajim as well as five other PKR assemblymen – Christina Liew (Api Api), Jelani Hamdan (Matunggong), Roland Chia (Inanam), Terence Siambun (Moyog) and Ukoh@Jeremy Malajat (Kadamaian).

He said the seventh letter proposing Lajim as Opposition chief was from Datuk Dr Jeffery Kitingan (STAR-Bingkor).

“We have no objection to Lajim being the Opposition chief,” Salleh said.

Lajim told the media later that the remaining four DAP assemblymen — Hiew King Cheu (Luyang), Wong Hong Jun (Likas), Chan Foong Hin (Sri Tanjong) and Dr Edwin Bosi (Kapayan) — and PKR’s Wilfred had agreed to him leading the Opposition.

Source: The Star