Datuk John Lau
KUCHING (Sept 16): Parti Sarawak Bersatu’s (PSB) potential candidate for Kota Sentosa Datuk John Lau is urging the new federal government to address the road transportation, internet connectivity and infrastructure development issues in Sarawak’s suburban and rural areas without further delay.
According to him, the internet connectivity in those areas is slow and unstable, while roads in the rural areas are still waiting to be upgraded and water as well as electricity supplies in many areas are still lacking.
Apart from that, he said since the formation of the federation of Malaysia 58 years ago, some of Sarawak’s rights and privileges have been eroded.
“Sarawak gets only five per cent revenue from our oil and gas revenue while Sarawak sea territory was limited to three nautical miles from the coast, the standard of education and health was compromised, infrastructure development was behind the Peninsular Malaysia by at least two decades,” he said in his statement for the 2021 Malaysia Day yesterday.
He also stressed on the importance of Malaysians to have a ‘great character’.
“China decided to build a Great Wall to live in peace and prevent foreign intruders from invading China. Several walls were built from as early as the 7th century BC, with selective stretches later joined together by Qin Shi Huang (220–206 BC),
“The Chinese realised much later that the best defence against the enemies is not a heavily fortified wall, but a fortified character,” he said.
Therefore, he believed that the development of human character should come before the building of anything else in the country.
He hoped that some sort of a ‘Great Wall’ can be built in the country to prevent further erosion of Sarawak’s rights and privileges.
“The ‘Great Wall’ should also prevent racial and religious politics from occupying its time in the country and at the same time also prevent corruption, nepotism and cronyism from happening.
“May this ‘Great Wall’ blocks the inflow of bureaucracy so that we will live in a society of high integrity with mutual respect. Moving forward, we need to live in a spirit of ‘Keluarga Malaysia’.”
He also called on all Sarawakians to exhibit their patriotic spirit so that the rights and privileges that have been eroded can be redeemed by Sarawak.
“Let us put our country in the hands of patriotic leaders who undoubtedly are of righteous character as embodied in our Rukunegara – the national pillar and principles upon which our multi-racial and multi-religious country is founded and let the spirit of Malaysia Day on Sept 16, 1963 be rekindled,” he said.
Meanwhile, Lau would like to wish everyone a “Happy Malaysia day”.
He also invited everyone to pray that the Covid-19 infections will decline soon so that everyone could go back to live a normal life.