Warisan minister Peter Anthony was recently called out by Sabah Bersih 2.0 for his attempt at silencing civil society. The Infrastructure Development Minister made a statement that civil society groups should not be ‘inciting people’, and should follow laws.
The minister has also ignored calls by the people to review his decision on the Tanjung Aru Eco-Development (TAED) and Papar Dam projects, and for valid reasons, but their pleas have fallen on deaf years. He is not engaging with the people and seems comfortable with his authoritarian work ethics.
He is literally telling civil society groups to just ‘shut up’, we know what we are doing! Peter is not the only one to imply that the people of Sabah are ignorant and do not know what’s best for them and thus should just ‘shut up’ and let people in power do as the like.
This dismissive attitude towards the rights and opinions of the people of Sabah seems to be the standard practice across the Warisan government representatives when it comes to projects that affect communities.
Chief Minister Shafie Apdal has been quoted spouting the same anti-rakyat (rhetoric) when it comes to defending and reinstating his much-criticised choices of projects from the old administration.
Shafie has deflected criticisms of the Papar Dam and TAED project by claiming that they are necessary, and that they will engage critics and the people of Sabah – but so far nothing has been forthcoming, aside from newspaper articles where he continues to insist on the importance of these rebooted projects.
The people of Sabah have long lived under administrations that have ignored their plight, dismissed their complaints and sacrificed the betterment of the rakyat for their own benefit. Shafie and the Warisan government are no different.
Warisan sold themselves as being better, more concerned and more caring than the previous administration – a government for the people of Sabah where concerns for the people, concerns for the environment and a dire need for economic development have to strike a balance.
Yet, all that they have done is rehash and recycle projects that they roundly condemned when they were opposition. They bring back projects like TAED and Papar Dam/Kaiduan Dam that, when in opposition, they promised would not be resuscitated because of the destruction it would cause, both to the environment and to the livelihood of the rural Sabahans. Similarly, their handling of Sabah Forest Industries (SFI) has resulted in the employees once again not being paid on time and in fear of their employment – just like in 2017.
They insist on making the same mistakes as the previous administration, mistakes that they condemned the previous administration for. They have become hypocrites from all the promises that they have broken to the people of Sabah.
And when questioned for it, they have only one answer – Be silent, don’t question us. We know what is good for you!
How will Sabah develop under the reign of these power-hungry leaders who are blind to the concerns of the people? How will the people of Sabah have a voice when their own leaders are making concerted efforts to silence them? When they look into the future of their state, do they see leaders that champion them – or leaders that step on them?
Without effective community engagement, the authoritarian rule will not survive.
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Berani Benar 