Hentikan bantah Empangan Baram

Posted on November 12, 2013, Tuesday

MIRI: Penduduk di Baram harus menerima projek mega seperti cadangan pembinaan Empangan Hidroelektrik Baram sekiranya mahu melihat lebih banyak pembangunan di situ.

Ahli Parti Demokratik Progesif Sarawak (SPDP) Jaya Ramba berkata, mustahil untuk melaksanakan pembangunan di kawasan tersebut sekiranya penduduk di kawasan itu menentang dan tidak bekerjasama dengan kerajaan.

“Pembangunan susah dilaksanakan seandainya ada pihak menghalang kerja bagi membantu rakyat di kawasan pedalaman.

“Masih ada pihak yang membantah projek hidro Baram setelah didesak dan dihasut oleh pihak yang tidak bertanggungjawab,” katanya.

Jaya dalam kenyataannya memberitahu, terdapat pihak yang menganggap diri mereka pertubuhan bukan kerajaan (NGO) yang mempertahankan Baram untuk dibangun dan dimajukan.

Tambahnya, kerajaan mempunyai perancangan tentang cara untuk membangunkan kawasan Baram termasuk mewujudkan Bandar Baharu Telang Usan.

Katanya ini sekali gus menjana pertumbuhan ekonomi bagi rakyat di Baram justeru mereka harus menerima projek mega seperti projek hidro dan projek Bandar Baharu Telang Usan.

“Saya berasa kecewa juga membaca bila tidak putus-putus pihak tidak bertanggungjawab menghasut orang kampung membantah projek kerajaan.

“Ada pihak NGO yang menggelarkan diri mereka pencinta alam dan menyarankan agar sesiapa yang bakal menjadi calon pilihan raya menghantar surat kepada mereka. Mereka mahukan rangka pembangunan hidro Baram dan apa pula agenda mereka ini?” soalnya.

Beliau menasihati pihak yang diwakili parti pembangkang agar jangan terlalu kuno dan menentang pembangunan kerajaan.

“Dalam dunia ini, belum ada projek hidro mengancam penduduk dan mencemarkan alam sekitar yang menjadikan ribuan manusia terkorban.

“Kita melihat projek Bakun, sekarang projek berkenaan dalam proses siap dibina. Begitu ramai anak Sarawak bekerja di situ.

“Saya berharap masyarakat Baram tidak mudah dihasut, tidak mudah ditipu dengan agenda jahat sesetengah individu yang cetek pemikiran.

“Sampai bila kita miskin fikiran, idea dan kematangan. Orang lain menerima pembangunan dan kemajuan, kita pula menolak kerana kita mudah dihasut oleh pihak yang tidak bertanggungjawab,” katanya.

Jelasnya, semakin ramai generasi muda berhijrah ke bandar, justeru dengan adanya empangan itu nanti ia akan membuka lebih banyak peluang pekerjaan sekali gus mengurangkan penghijrahan ke kawasan lain.

Malaysia pays $133 mn after delays to troubled dam

KUALA LUMPUR, October 2, 2013 (AFP) - Malaysia's government agreed to pay $133 million in compensation to two foreign contractors for losses incurred in the problem-plagued Bakun Dam, an audit has revealed.

The compensation, revealed in the Auditor-General's annual report, is a rare official acknowledgement of problems in a highly controversial project that Transparency International once labelled a "Monument to Corruption".

The report submitted to parliament Tuesday said two contractors suffered delays of up to four years in civil engineering works, causing their costs to spike.

The contractors were French-based Alstom and Impsa-Malaysia, which is largely controlled by Argentina's Impsa group.

The $2.3 billion dam, which began operations in 2011, is the largest in a series of hydroelectric facilities in the heart of the Borneo rainforest that have been completed or are planned by the government of Sarawak state.

Environmentalists, anti-graft activists, and native tribes denounce Bakun -- which has reportedly displaced more than 10,000 native tribal villagers with its Singapore-sized reservoir -- as a corruption-plagued environmental and human disaster.

Sarawak's chief minister, Taib Mahmud, has repeatedly denied mounting accusations of enriching himself, his family, and cronies through a stranglehold on the state's economy, including the dam projects.

The start-up of Bakun's turbines in 2011 came five decades after it was first proposed, following funding problems, tribal protests, and corruption accusations.

The Malaysian government has never publicly investigated the allegations swirling around the project.

Despite Bakun providing more than double Sarawak's energy needs, a series of other dams are in the works.

Taib's government says it must provide energy to lure investors to the state, one of Malaysia's poorest.

His opponents say companies linked to Taib are the main beneficiaries of the cheap energy and contracts related to dam construction.

Critics accuse Malaysia's central government of refusing to probe Taib because he controls parliament seats vital to the ruling coalition.

Taib's dams have met with increasing indigenous protests. More than 100 tribesmen are now blockading access to another dam at remote Murum to demand compensation, activists say.

Recognise Sabah, Sarawak as equals

A potential political war may come to boil if federal government keeps ignoring calls to recognise the Borneo states as equal on all platforms

PETALING JAYA: Tension in Sabah and Sarawak will come to a head as long as Malaysians continue to equate the two as just another state of Malaysia, warned veteran Umno leader Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah.

Tengku Razaleigh, popularly known as Ku Li, said it was time Sabah and Sarawak recognized and treated as equal partners in Malaysia.

“There is resentment and dissatisfaction with Sabah and Sarawak being treated as and equated to just another state of Malaysia… It had been simmering since the 1980s but it never resurfaces, not as a formal articulation anyway.

“It is, nevertheless, a political war that has the potential to come to a boil,” said Tengku Razaleigh in his speech to the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society yesterday.

The Gua Musang MP pointed out that the Cobbold Commission had stressed that Malaysia’s formation should be regarded as an association of partners involving Sabah, Sarawak, Malaya and Singapore.

“If any idea were to take root that Malaysia would involve a ‘take-over’ of the Borneo territories by the Federation of Malaya and the submersion of the individualities of North Borneo and Sarawak, Malaysia would not be generally acceptable and successful,” said Tengku Razaleigh, quoting the commission’s report.

He said the current misconceptions over Sabah and Sarawak’s standing in Malaysia could be corrected by including it in the school curriculum.

“It should be pointed out, for instance, that Aug 31 is of no particular significance to Sabah and Sarawak, its grand celebration notwithstanding. It is but the date of Malaya’s independence and it should be celebrated for just that.

“On the other hand, Sept 16 – the Malaysia Day – has a greater significance and is certainly a more important date in the annals of Malaysia. It must, therefore, be allowed to take its place as a major celebration in our national calendar of events.”

20/18 point agreements not honoured

Tengku Razaleigh also urged that Sabah’s 20 point and Sarawak’s 18 point agreements – safeguards written up as preconditions to the formation of Malaysia – be reviewed, as the federal government had failed to fulfill them.

“[A Sabah academic] pointed out that Sabahans and Sarawakians agreed to be part of Malaysia on the understanding that the interests of the states were safeguarded…in the 20/18-point agreements, the London Agreements and the Inter-Governmental Reports.”

“He pointed out further that the safeguards were not honoured and taken away at the whim and fancy of the Federal Government….”

Tengku Razaleigh noted a Sabah politician recently argued that Sabah had lost most of the 20 points after decisions affecting the states were made by Kuala Lumpur instead.

The safeguards were to be reviewed ten years after Malaysia’s formation, but the committee set up by then Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein to look into the agreements did not meet that year.

This was because they were drawing up the Draft Bill of the Petroleum Development Act (PDA) at that time, and priority was given to the acceptance of the PDA by Sabah and Sarawak, according to Tengku Razaleigh.

“I would like to emphasise here that the review not taking place despite Tun Razak’s intentions reflects the good faith of the federal government in the relationship with Sabah and Sarawak…

“Perhaps the review could be considered afresh as Malaysia celebrates her golden anniversary,” he suggested.

He also urged that the government seriously think of ways to overcome the economic difficulties by East Malaysians.

“It is time that the government absorbed the continually increasing financial burden rather than allowing it to ultimately land on the shoulder of the people.

“If this is well handled, I am confident that we can begin to mitigate and work towards overcoming the negative perception towards Kuala Lumpur that seems to be playing in the collective mind of Sabahans and Sarawakians.”