KUCHING: Telang Usan assemblyman Dennis Ngau hopes Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob will allocate more funds for the development of rural Sarawak when he tables the 12th Malaysia Plan (12MP) in the Dewan Rakyat today (Sept 27).
Ismail Sabri is scheduled to table the country’s five-year (2021-2025) development roadmap at 11.30am after the answer-and-question session.
“The rural areas in Sarawak need a lot of funding because the cost of development there is very expensive due to the long distances from the urban or city areas.
“The much-needed development in the rural areas include roads, bridges and other infrastructures,” said Dennis.
He added that more funds under the 12th Malaysia Plan (12MP) should be allocated to Sarawak, especially for the development of infrastructures and connectivity in rural parts of the state.
The assemblyman said he was grateful to the state government under the leadership of Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg for allocating funds to develop rural areas in Sarawak.
He said the federal government should complement what the state government had done by allocating more funds to speed up development in Sarawak.
“All this time, we, the rural people, have always been side-lined by the federal government. To it, we are nothing, so we are not seen as a priority,” said Dennis when recently contacted by New Sarawak Tribune.
He pointed out that roads and bridges were important for rural communities to move from one place to another and were much needed for safe travelling.
“In Baram, a few bridges have collapsed due to floods. They were built by logging companies.
“The federal government kept quiet about these bridges and I felt helpless,” he said.
The Telang Usan assemblymen urged the prime minister to be different and to do better than previous leaders if the country wanted to be well developed and enjoyed by all Malaysians.
He also said that the federal government needed to be fair in allocating budgets to states. It should focus on the rural areas first instead of cities that had been well-developed.
“I do not understand why we need to differentiate one another as we are all Malaysian citizens. I think this is not fair to us in the rural areas.
“I beg the prime minister and the present government to be better than the previous federal government in pushing forward the development agenda in rural areas, particularly in Sarawak.”
Apart from that, Dennis said that he would love to meet the prime minister to talk about what were faced by the rural communities and what could be done to improve the rural areas.
He also wanted Ismail Sabri to come to rural Sarawak to see the daily hardships faced by the rural communities.
“By seeing the situation with his own eyes, maybe he can do something and quickly provide funds for development.
“He can call me for a meeting or invite me to talk about the situation in the rural areas. I would love to go to Putrajaya to meet him for the sake of the rural communities,” said Dennis.
He hoped that in the future, rural Sarawak would be well developed with well-built infrastructures, roads, connectivity, telecommunications as well as bridges.
“We support Ismail Sabri but he also must be daring enough to do something different from what other past leaders have done,” said Dennis.
