After 50 years, Sarawak is still beggar state

Sadly, Sarawak remains a beggar state, even after half a century of independence and after over 25 years under control of the Taib Mahmud dynasty. So much timber and other natural resources have been extracted from the land for as long as Taib has been in power. Yet, Sarawak is in the same financial state as African countries depending on handouts from other governments.

How many indigenious Sarawak companies export Made-in-Sarawak technologies and high value services? What is the contribution of the value of export of indigenious technologies and services to the State's GDP (excluding natural resources and related products)? For how long can we let Taib Mahmud plunder the land? When can we start focusing on developing indigenious high value-added products and services, and stop plundering the land to conserve for future generation?

Rush the Removal of Taib

Now Taib Mahmud has to insult the intelligence of Sarawakians. How dare he say Sarawakians can only accept and understand change slowly?

The one mother of all changes that Sarawaks want to rush is the removal of Taib Mahmud, Alfred Jabu and George Chan.

So why is Taib calling for slow tempo? To give him and his cronies more time to amass wealth and plunder the land?

William Mawan Still Asleep

The Minister has been drinking and now he is sleeping. How simple issues become complicated problems where in the hands of dumb minister.

Source: The Star Online 21-Oct-2008

Taskforce to look into ICs, birth certs of Sarawak rural folk
By SHARON LING

KUCHING: The state government is setting up a taskforce to look into the problem of rural folk who still do not have identity cards or birth certificates.

Social Development and Urbanisation Minister Datuk William Mawan said his ministry will be the secretariat of the taskforce, which will also comprise other relevant authorities including the National Registration Department (NRD), the Education Department and police.

“There are people who have applied for their identity cards or birth certificates but due to some technical reasons -- in that they could not fully satisfy the requirements of the NRD -- their applications have been delayed.

Thus they are not in possession of legal documents to say that they are Sarawakians.

“The problem here is, if the parents don’t have documents, their children won’t have documents and neither will their grandchildren. It’s a vicious circle,” he told reporters after attending a briefing with NRD officers at Wisma Bapa Malaysia here on Tuesday.

Mawan said there were 3,887 reported cases of people who had not registered for personal documents yet, 4,800 school students without documents and 1,274 cases of documents which could not be delivered to applicants.

“These are the immediate areas that we want to address,” he said.

He added that a collaborative approach involving the NRD, other departments, district officers, elected representatives and village headmen was needed to tackle the matter effectively.

“As such, the taskforce will coordinate efforts to solve this problem,” he said.

More Destruction into Native Land

If you want to feel sick, take a trip to logging areas in interior Sarawak. You thought you would enjoy pristine rainforest country and cool dips in clear rivers. Instead, the sights are sickening.

Now, the beautiful Bario, so remote and undisturbed, is now victim to greedy timber companies feeding the coffers of Taib Mahmud.