Saturday 8 September 2012

Baru slams Mahathir over his blatant statement


Kuching, Sept 8, 2012: Sarawak PKR chief Baru Bian slammed former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad for his blatant statement in the people of Sarawak and Sabah to be patient with the Barisan Nasional (BN) government.

“The blatant statement perfectly demonstrates what the BN government thinks of us in Sarawak and Sabah,” the Ba’Kelalan state assemblyman said in a statement today.

Baru stressed:”We are regarded as the ignorant and unquestioning fixed deposit states that are in this country to be milked dry to fund the excessive spending crazes in Peninsular Malaysia.

“We have been patient for 49 years.  How many more years does this old man thinks he can fool us to wait?

“What does he mean by saying  “just be patient and wait for the resources to be extracted and soon your earnings (and development)” will increase?

Baru said that UMNO and BN have been making huge ‘withdrawals’ from Sarawak and Sabah’s oil and gas resources via Petronas for over 30 years now, while giving the two states crumbs to keep them quiet.  

“I wish to ask him in his capacity as Petronas advisor what Petronas has been doing in Sarawak and Sabah all these years if not extracting our precious resources?

“I wish to ask him as the former prime minister how much money from these precious resources of ours that the federal government has taken for their lavish spending and crony bailouts in Peninsula Malaysia over the years while Sarawak and its people continue to lag behind in all aspects.

“Thus it is all the more outrageous that Mahathir should say in his next breath, “In truth, I think that the development of Sabah and Sarawak has outstripped the peninsula. Sarawak has the highest foreign direct investment and Sabah has the largest reserves of petroleum in the country.”  

“As Chairman of PKR Sarawak, I challenge Mahathir to come to Sarawak and tell this to the people who still have no access to electricity, clean water, health care, education and jobs in the deepest reaches of sarawak.

“Tell this to the numerous families who have lost loved ones in accidents along our killer Pan-Borneo Highway.

“Tell this to the people who are now waking up to the fact that Sarawak has been taken for a ride all these years by the Federal BN government. Come to Sarawak, Mahathir, and say this to our faces,” Baru challenged. By Sematong Express.

Disclose statistics of successful applications into civil service, Shiak Ni to Mahmood Adam

Kuching, Sept 8, 2012:  Public Service Commission Chairman Mahmood Adam has been challenged to disclose details of successful applicants in the civil service for the public’s consumption.
PKR National Wanita vice head Voon Shiak Ni today said:”Let the public knows the statistics of successful applications, instead of arguing that the public service commission has been trying to be fair in the allocation of job opportunities for all Malaysian in the civil service in the past years.”
Picture: Voon (right) with (from left) Sarawak PKR secretary Stanny Embat and Sarawak PKR chief Baru at a press conference.
Voon dismissed Mahmood’s claim that the Chinese do not want to work in the civil service because of the low salary and other benefits.
“That statement is not true,” she said, adding that many school leavers have applied to join the civil service because it is stable.
“Moreover, most parents want stability in jobs for their children, which the civil service can provide,” she said.
Voon stressed that Mahmood should not mislead the public that more Chinese have applied to join the civil service following a series of campaigns by the commission.
“But the issue is not about the number of applications so Mahmood should not mislead the public.
“We are more concerned about the percentage of successful applicants among the Chinese by the commission,” she added.
She stressed:”If the government is sincere, as claimed by Mahmood in providing equal job opportunities for all Malaysians, then he should prove it by giving out the statistics of all successful applicants.”
She asked whether the government has been fair in taking the applicants from other Malaysians into the civil service.
Voon said that the government should come up with better policies for all Malaysians, instead of stating the number of applications as it does not lend any weight or voices to the people’s concerns.
On Mahmood’s claims that there are 7000 vacancies in the civil service, Voon urged him to publish the racial break-downs of those who have been accepted. By Sematong Express