Government Serious In Rural Transformation - CM

Chief Minister Datuk Tan Sri Haji Adenan Satem said, the Sarawak government is serious in transforming our rural areas and for this reason, we have provided substantial amount of budget to implement numerous programmes and projects in the rural areas.

"All these projects are in the form of rural basic infrastructure such as roads, water and electricity supplies as well as social amenities.I would like to assure that these projects are indeed people centric in order to accelerate this transformation."

In his respond to the issue raised by Kota Sentosa ADUN (DAP) Chong Chieng Jen on MRPs and social programmes under rural development, Adenan stressed that these efforts are not one-off but will be continued under the 11th Malaysia Plan until they see marked improvements in the livelihood of our rural communities.

"The first tranche of allocation amounting RM244.6 million has been disbursed to implement 1,032 projects and there are many more being planned and to be implemented and the Federal Government also continues to provide fund for Minor Rural Projects every year."

"I regret to say that DAP is opposing my request for an additional RM500 million for rural development which will largely benefit the Bumiputera community," he adding that, this additional allocation will be used for the implementation of rural projects such as Long Lama Bridge, Bako Bridge and Limbang Bridge.

"The increased in the MRP allocation for the Barisan Nasional ADUNs is to enable them to fulfil all the promises to the people within their own constituencies including those constituencies which are under the opposition.For these constituencies, the Barisan Nasional ADUNs nearby canforward their request to me for approval."

"As I have mentioned earlier, these projects are rural basic infrastructure such as roads, water and electricity as well as social amenity projects such as community halls, places of worship and sport facilities," he said adding that, in view of the different types of projects, scope and location, the cost of each project varies.

"Therefore, it is not practical to provide the same amount of allocation for every project and the Government machinery is now in full gear implementing all our rural transformation projects to ensure that these projects are completedon time to benefit the rakyat."

He said this in winding-up speech during the State Legislative Assembly Sitting at Petra Jaya, Kuching here today.

On technical training, Adenan said that, our people must be ready to grab all the opportunities arising from more investment coming into the State.

"These industries demand workers that are highly skilled and technically competent. We do not want these opportunities to be filled by foreign workers. Instead, these opportunities should be taken up by our local workforce."

"Therefore, it is imperative for us to prepare and train our people to be highly skilled and competent to meet the need of these industries. Human capital and technical training is in the main agenda of our development thrust to spearhead the success of our industrialisation," he added.

Adenan said that, for this purpose, we are establishing more technical training centres and at the same time, we are fine tuning the quality of existing programmes and courses to suit the requirements of industries in various fields namely manufacturing, agriculture and services.

"The State will complement the efforts of the Federal Government in technical and vocational trainings and in this respect, Yayasan Sarawak has been tasked to collaborate with other agencies in spearheading technical trainings in the State," he said. - Sarawakiana