Wednesday 9 January 2008

Why higher poverty level in Sabah?

Due to the people of Sabah having to share Government's allocation with the illegal immigrant population, according to Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) Vice-President Tan Sri Simon Sipaun.

He told a dialogue in Kota Kinabalu Tuesday that a high ranking Federal officer had disclosed that the allocation of Federal Government funds for the Malaysia Plans did not take into account the actual number of people in Sabah.

"They only take into consideration the number of Malaysian citizens residing in Sabah," he said.

As an example, Sipaun said last year there were 3.5 million people in Sabah and only 1.5 million were Malaysians, which would mean that the fund for 1.5 million people had to be shared by the entire population.

He also said that the illegal immigrant population in Sabah would grow.

"There could be as many foreigners and possibly more than there are Malaysians in Sabah" he said.

He cited example of the Kinabatangan district in 2004 which then had a population of 85,000 of which only 25,000 were Malaysians. Fire razed Kampung Icebox in Tawau whose population was 5,000 which was later found out that only 500 were Malaysians.

My Say:

I take Sipaun's words the whole truth nothing but the truth. He is an authority, having been one of Sabah's `son of the soil' who had held high ranking posts in the State and Federal Governments. He retired several years ago as Sabah's State Secretary.

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