Taken from somewhere in Sulaman Bay, Tuaran
THE CASE OF MYCARD AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS (PTI) IN SABAH (English Version)
Dompok who is also Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department said that the government has decided on a course of action that could flush out all foreign nationals without valid documents if it was implemented sincerely.
He said that foreigners who could stay on in Sabah should only be those allowed to work after obtaining work passes issued by the Immigration Department. Dompok also voiced concern about another category of foreigners who should not be in Sabah but somehow managed to secure valid documents.
“They are the ones who by the stroke of the pen, accorded citizenship and may even join the ranks of natives of this country. This is a more serious problem,” he said.
On the same token Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Joseph Pairin Kitingan hoped there will be no more cases of a citizen being demoted to a Permanent Resident now that a Sabahan is heading the State National Registration Department (NRD).
Welcoming the appointment of Abdul Jaffaer Henry as the new State NRD Director, he said the department should now be able to perform its roles and responsibilities properly and according to public expectations.
With the exception of UMNO, most of the parties had contributed more or less their grievances pertaining to the issues of MyKad and PTI.
Since the formation of PKR in Sabah sometimes ago, Datuk Dr Jeffry Kitingan had been saying aloud about the issue of PTI and the needs to have more Sabahan senior officers in the federal departments. But so far no body seem to bother.
However, beside MyKad and PTI the problem of poverty and unemployments are also equally important to the people of Sabah.
THE EPIC OF POVERTY IN SABAH
Briefly let share my favorite topic, “The Epic Of Poverty “ as seen by a Medical Doctor from Ranau.
"During my 2 years in Ranau, I've heard and seen it all, patients with cerebral malaria, a condition unheard of in Peninsular Malaysia, coming in after 48 hours to the hospital from places like Kaingaran and Karagasan, with relatives having to push the 'pirate taxi' through the mud, spending RM50 on fare during the monsoon season, the equivalent of 2 months income, this too when petrol was only around RM1.20 a liter in Ranau.
Patients having to delay treatment for life threatening conditions because a bridge washed away along the trail (I won't even call it a road) to Tambunan. Emergency surgery such as caesarian sections, appendectomies and even ectopic pregnancies had to be performed in our little district hospitals by Medical Officers with little more than 4 months housemanship experience.
Medical emergencies such as myocardial infarctions, which in Peninsular Malaysia would be managed in a Coronary Care Unit setting, had to be managed in the district hospital level. I'm grateful however, that my staff in that hospital were the best I've ever had the pleasure of working with and were dedicated enough to want to make a difference in their patients' lives.
But poor transportation does not only affect the access to healthcare. Having no roads to be able to transport their agricultural produce for sale means that these people are stuck in a never ending cycle of poverty.
At most, some of them get RM20 to RM50 by selling their produce to middlemen to be sold at the monthly tamu or market at prices that are perhaps only 10 percent of the value of the goods. These innocent people are also preyed upon by traveling cloth merchants, mostly foreigners, who offer them 'easy payment schemes' to buy cloth for clothes, and when they cannot pay for the cloth and the interest accumulates, they end up having to marry their daughters to these men, who often have wives back home in Pakistan.
One of the cases I could never forget was of the family who came to Ranau Hospital just as I was leaving, a family who had failed crops, were hungry and unable to get food. The father collected some toad eggs and fed them to the whole family in a desperate attempt to stave off hunger. When they arrived at our little emergency room, one of the children were dead and two passed away within 10 minutes of arrival in our casualty unit due to poisoning.
Major towns in Sabah have electricity courtesy of the Sabah Electricity Board, but smaller villages have either diesel generators or rely on candles or lamps when night falls.
How can children study in these conditions? Like many doctors in the districts, I had to learn Dusun to communicate better with these patients who could speak little else.
By all means, declare Sept 16th a public holiday, but remember it in its real context, where we made a promise to our brethren in Sabah and Sarawak to treat them as equals in Malaysia, and give them the development they've been long denied.”
Nampak nya hampir-hampir semua parti dan NGO di Sabah sibuk memainkan peranan masing-masing dalam usaha untuk menangani masaalah MyKad dan PTI. Kecuali Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak, UMNO Sabah maseh lagi senyap.
Sehingga kini, sudah banyak suara-suara sumbang rakyat Sabah yang merasakan bahawa UMNO tidak perihatin terhadap kesusahan rakyat disini.
Sedangkan pada suatu ketika, mereka telah menjanjikan akan mengubah nasib rakyat Sabah melalui program ‘ Sabah Baru’.
Mungkin program Sabah Baru yang di maksudkan itu, di khaskan untuk membantu nasib kaum bumiputera muslim yangmana pada suatu ketika dulu telah di abaikan dalam pemerintahan PBS. Apa yang terjadi kini? Harap kan pagar, pagar makan padi. Situasi maseh kekal, sama saperti sebelum ujud nya Sabah Baru. Hanya beberapa orang sahaja yang mendapat manafaat. Mereka-mereka yang terpilih sebagai pemimpin UMNO dan Pegawai Kanan Kerajaan.
Rakyat jelata dari suku kaum bumiputera yang beragama Islam juga menerima nasib saperti yang lain; Papa kedana.
So, kalau parti yang lain berani menerima cabaran untuk mengubah nasib rakyat di sini, Kenapa pula UMNO Sabah tidak? Sedangkan banyak ruang yang mereka boleh pilih. Tak kan hanya parti lain sahaja yang berjuang mati-matian untuk rakyat Sabah.
However, saya syorkan kepada UMNO Sabah untuk memperjuangkan rakyat miskin dan belia yang banyak menggangur. Cukup lah dengan gimmik politik dan kekayaan yang sedia ada di kalangan pemimpin UMNO Sabah. Kuasa sudah di tangan, katakan kepada Pemimpin-Pemimpin UMNO Pusat untuk turun padang ke Sabah. Bantu orang kita yang sangat susah di sini. Kalau rakyat beragama Islam sendiri tidak dapat di bantu, macam mana pula boleh bantu yang lain ?
EPILOG
UMNO Sabah patut ubah sikap, perangai dan strategi. Kalau tidak, lebih baik join atau ambil alih PKR Sabah. Baik atau pun tidak, sekurang-kurang nya impian kita tidak terbantut saperti sedia kala. Bak kata DSAI " Enough Is Enough."
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