Materials being sent through Ba Kelalan across the border to Long Midang in North Kalimantan under the bilateral agreement between Malaysia and Indonesia.
MIRI (April 9): A Ba Kelalan resident has expressed the community’s fear of being potentially exposed to Covid-19 infection following the move by the federal government to transport construction materials and food supplies through Ba Kelalan across the border to Long Midang in Indonesia.
Kampung Punang Kelalan resident Isak Mutang, whose village is located closest to the border, is questioning the purpose and manner of the distribution of the said goods to the Indonesian side, claiming local folks were not engaged in any prior discussion on the matter.
“I’m just one out of the majority of Ba Kelalan folks who are seriously concerned about the possibility of contracting Covid-19 from our neighbouring country via Long Midang.
“Our international border has yet to be officially reopened but government facilitators are using our village passage as the entry and exit point at will,” he told The Borneo Post.
Deputy Rural Development Minister Datuk Henry Sum Agong (second left) who is also Lawas MP, representing Malaysia during the handing-over of materials and food supplies over to Indonesian officials at the border in Ba Kelalan. The supplies were requested by Indonesia to meet shortages in the Krayan district in northern Kalimantan.
Isak added that the majority of the local Lun Bawang community is also doubtful of the legality of such transactions, and whether the purpose of sending the said provisions and building materials are in the interest of Koperasi Ba Kelalan as claimed.
The Borneo Post was told that the materials sent were based on a bilateral cooperation between Malaysia and Indonesia, in response to the shortage of materials on the border areas of Krayan district in northern Kalimantan.
A Memorandum of Understanding was signed in February this year following a request from the provincial governor, with Putrajaya and Jakarta agreeing to this arrangement on humanitarian grounds.
“Such activity has happened three times already during this lockdown period and the documentary evidence has also been sent to (Ba Kelalan assemblyman) YB Baru Bian’s office in Lawas,” said Isak.
Isak further claimed that local folks feel as though their aspiration of a Covid-19-free Ba Kelalan is being taken for granted.
He said local folk greatly fear Covid-19 infection in view that their villages in the highlands of Ba Kelalan are at least 140km away from the nearest hospital in Lawas and would take some six hours to reach, mostly via logging tracks.
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