Foreign NGOs are ignorant about Sarawak

Sarawak  Forest

Sarawak has been getting very negative criticisms from NGOs especially on environment and erroneous reportings by foreign media that the people must decide to use what ever avenues to highlight the facts about issues being raised by them.

It is our fundamental duty as Malaysians of Anak Sarawak, regardless of what ever party we belong to, to defend the interests of the common people, the State and the country. To remain silent can be misconstrued as condoning the activities of foreign NGOs or individuals, who have blatantly passed comments on wrong facts about us.

Though we can expect to be criticised in this borderless world the attacks have been made based on half truths and outright lies; the allegations are baseless and unfounded.  The question that we must ask ourselves is, are we prepared to continue to suffer a lot of adverse criticisms from NGOs and wrong reportings by foreign print and electronic media? If so how will the people the people know the truth about us.

While their kids demonstrate and playing video games

The development of Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE) will enable the State to develop the huge hydro potentials in Murum, Baleh, Ulu Baram and coal reserves in Ng. Marit in Ulu Kapit and Balingian in Mukah to generate electricity at reasonable costs. However, such development requires huge capital costs, estimated at RM330 billion.

The State has come to the stage of development where the private sector must play bigger roles and become the new engine of growth as we enter the second wave of development or the era of massive industrialisation. 

The State government has to spend RM3 billion every year for the development of infrastructure in SCORE development areas, those with hydro potentials and huge coal reserves in particular.  Indisputably, the development of SCORE represents the highest the level of development, which, among other things demands a restructure of the development machinery.  

Our kids join the awareness campaign and learn to love nature up close

The development of human resource must start with children, who start going to school at the age of 6. The human resource development represents the most difficult part of the development.  Essentially, the human capital development program must cover the primary, secondary and tertiary education, primarily to train children to become skilled or knowledge workers. Generally, the people in the professional group should have training of between 15 to 16 years while those in the skills category must have three years of skill training in mechanical and technical works after completing SPM education.

Sarawak still have their rainforests for new generation. Your country?

The development of SCORE entails many inter-related elements that have to be put together so that they can function properly as a system in the process.   The State has to work very closely with big investors to develop trigger projects to manufacture products to be exported as the domestic market is still too small. The foreign companies, with their global connections, to develop the trigger projects, should be able to put Sarawak immediately on the world map.

However, the State must develop sufficient infrastructure in order to make big investors to be interested to come and invest in trigger projects in SCORE development area. Besides, the State must make continuous efforts to invest massively in the development of hydro power and coal- fired generating stations.

In this connection, conscientious efforts must be made to attract big foreign investors to develop trigger projects primarily to create opportunities in four ways:

·              Each trigger project can be expected to build cluster of supporting industries such as industrial components, gas and other inputs and services. Local and foreign industries will come to provide specialized products and services to the trigger projects directly;

·              Each trigger project can be expected to create opportunities for downstream industries that can add values to more local products. Besides, the industries should be able to provide more opportunities for local companies comprising of small and medium-sized entrepreneurs to diversify enterprises.  For example, they could invest in the production of aluminum products like reheating or re-melting of solid aluminum.  Glass and palm oil products and food processing could stretch further down the productive chain to make full use of oil palm; the state has developed about 1 million hectares of land for the commodity.  

·              Create opportunities for support industries such as transportation and logistics in the supply chain; and

·              Create opportunities for support services such as learning institutions, health  care and entertainment that will provide the required services for the workers and their families.

Have you ever been to Sarawak, lady?

Understandably, the planning for SCORE takes into consideration the types of jobs that will be available in Sarawak. It pays particular attention to the manpower planning for SCORE potentials.

Chief Minister, Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud says the allegations that all the jobs, relating to the construction of hydro dams, have been awarded to CMS are blatant lies. “I wish to state categorically here that although CMS did bid for the projects but they lost to other companies. That is how this government operates. Don’t repeat anything else that is not the truth.”

Regrettably, most developing countries had suffered a lot of adverse criticisms from NGOs and through wrong reporting by mass media. As we live in a borderless world we have to face such criticisms; when necessary, we have to counter them. For example, we engaged the services of established Public Relations firms to counter such unfair criticisms before. Actually, the State has been getting very negative criticisms from NGOs and erroneous reporting by foreign media since the boom of timber industries and now palm oil industries. We have been attacked unfairly.

He says “I would have thought whatever party we belong to, it is our fundamental duty to defend the interests of the common people; we should not join foreign NGOs or individuals, who have blatantly passed comments on wrong facts about us. Some western countries, which have constructed many hydro dams to generate electricity, do not like to see us doing the same things and become more competitive to them. In other words, they are not happy to see some developing countries, now still struggling, to succeed and compete with them. I am not going to bow down to this kind of thing; hopefully, people from all parties will join me to fight them.”

Understandably, the current priority of the State is the development of SCORE with special attention to the manpower planning for the region. In the next two to three years, there will be manpower requirements in the following industries:

             *  Agro-based industries with the development of the halal hub in Tanjung Manis;

      *  Aluminum and poly silicon industries with the development of Samalaju and  Mukah;

* Construction industries with the development of the required infrastructure for SCORE including logistic and housing; and

    *   Educational and training industries for the development of the required  manpower.

Besides, the state’s major concern is to ensure as far as possible jobs to be created in SCORE will go to the local people. The following steps have to be taken:     

·              Ensure that wages are properly matched with the skills so that the supply of skills is forthcoming. However, people with skills must not be  overpaid  and make ourselves uncompetitive in  the global market; and

·              Ensure that training centers must have the necessary environment and  infrastructure to attract  both trainers and students to them.  If they are located in remote areas, they may not attract trainers and  students ;  they  may not have the required economy of scale. 

SCORE introduces new activities

Actually the development of SCORE represents a major undertaking that is over and above the usual business of the State government. It will introduce new activities, which  may be better performed by additional personnel that could  be hired as specialists under different schemes because of their experience in the industry and market. Therefore, there is a need to expand the capacity of the civil service, which means  increasing the capacity in the human resources  to achieve greater output for implementing SCORE.

During the past 10 years, the State has been able to set UNIMAS, a full fledged university and three university campuses and a number of college campuses. However, the government, which has been spending a lot of money on education, cannot ensure its success without active involvement of community leaders. They must regard education as part of the transformation of the economy from the traditional economy to industrial one, which will be a much higher level of economic development, under the second phase of the politics of development towards the year 2020 and beyond.     

UNIMAS

Undoubtedly, State’s success in development has helped to restructure a new form of community consistent with the concept of COME with stands for Change, Opportunity, Mobility and Equality. For example, at one time, there were very few Bidayuhs in Bintulu, now they form a sizeable community in the town. They can also be found in sizeable number in Mukah to such an extent that they can form their own association. In other words, the State has been able to transform our multi-racial society to become an equal society while preserving the spirit of working as a team. Essentially, the people must continue to work as a team, do research on new ways of working as a team and adopt new technology in the process.

Generally, the concept of COME, which was introduced 10 years ago, has also brought some changes in the attitude of the people towards employment. For example if all young people want to be employed as clerks, as happened in the 60s and 70s, they are likely to be very frustrated now. With the Internet on line, the clerks, whose primary task is to record particulars, have increasingly become redundant now with, for example, an office boy in Kapit can get what ever particulars that the department needs through internet or E-mail.

 In other words, the old practices of recoding details by clerks have increasingly becoming obsolete. Besides, more new ways of doing things are being introduced as we must keep up to date with positive changes. Generally, once we can adapt ourselves to changes we should be able to anticipate new opportunities, which will motivate up to move to new places like    Bintulu, Kapit, and other places where our skills or expertise can be utilised to do works that we have been trained to do.

Before the local people only formed about 3% of the workforce in the professional group but now they form about 12% of them.  Though it is quite a good achievement but still insufficient with new jobs coming up. At one time 75% of the workforce were involved in agriculture and mining. Now only 28% remain in the agriculture and mining sectors. Those, who have acquired some skills in the sub-professional group, have increased substantially and those with professional qualifications are being encouraged to come up with new ideas on matters relating to management, product investment and the capability to develop our own technology on research and development.

Obviously, the State must aim to become more advanced in producing bio-products as the foundation of the development of pharmaceutical industry. Besides, it must also aim to become more advanced in producing quality flour from the sago industry, processing Halal food products, which can be exported to the world market, the Islamic countries in particular.  The state needs to produce people with diverse skills and expertise to develop Tanjung Manis as Halal hub in order to have advantages in selling products to muslim countries.  With the anticipation of more opportunities coming up, the people must try to adapt ourselves to changes and the requirements for qualification, skills and expertise.

Undoubtedly, the development of SCORE challenges the people to equip themselves with necessary knowledge and skills through education and skill trainings in order to become knowledge workers. Therefore, the people, from leaders down to the grass roots, must have the attitude, desire and determination to become K-workers, which is the hallmark of hi-tech society or developed society.

benuasains

 *Photos Source: google.com images  

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