By Ezra Haganez
KOTA KINABALU: DAP has singled out UMNO-led Barisan Nasional as the major cause for Sabah's miserable state of affairs including being reduced to become the poorest state in Malaysia, though sitting on the richest of resources.
DAP National Disciplinary Committee Chairman, Tan Kok Wai, said it is the corrupt nature in UMNO-led BN that had plundered Sabah's resources and misapproriated them away from its true target, the rakyat.
"47 years since 1963, Sabah has been under BN's rule, but only political parties and BN leaders have become rich, while the people of Sabah are the poorest in the country. Why? This is a shame," said Kok Wai while officiating the Party's one-day state convention here today.
Kok Wai who is also DAP National Election Director and MP for Cheras, recalled that in the 1994 general election, BN in its manifesto pledged that there would be zero poverty in Sabah by the year 2000, but today poverty still plaguing the state.
"In 2007, the BN state chief minister again promised Sabahans that poverty would be eradicated by the year 2010, and that there would be no more hardcore poor in the state by 2009, but look today Sabahans remain the poorest in Malaysia.
"If Sabahans allow BN to continue ruling this country, Sabah will forever be the poorest for the next 100 years," he told the about 100 party delegates who made up the state DAP's main grassroot leaders.
Kok Wai said Malaysia continued to slip far behind other countries like South Korea and Singapore because of its corrupt leadership promoted under the BN's rule.
"In 1957, Malaysia's per capita income was USD380 while South Korea's was only USD260. But today South Korea's per capita income is RM25,300 while Malaysia's is only about RM6,700.
"And now for the first time, the GDP of Malaysia is smaller than the GDP of Singapore, which means Singapore with its small population of 4.8 million and without natural resources now has a bigger economy than Malaysia with a population of 28 million with rich resources..." he further elaboated on how Malaysia is going down.
On top of that, he said, in 2009, according to the World Bank, the FDI in Malaysia has dropped to a mere USD1.4 billion while that of tiny Singapore was at USD14 billion, 10 times bigger than ours.
All this, he argued, points to BN's failed and corrupted way in managing the country, and that the people especially in Sabah must take stock of this facts when they vote in the coming general election.
Kok Wai also made a clarion call to Sabah DAP leadership to preserve unity in its ranks-and-file and to work diligently for change.
"Without unity and teamwork, an organisation cannot succeed... i hope the new state committee (to be elected later today) would be a shining example for the people here. This is the clarion call from the Party," he said.
Among those present today were DAP state chairman, Dr Hiew King Cheu, MP for Segambut Lim Lip Eng and DAP's sole Sabah state assemblyman for Sri Tanjung, Jimmy Wong.
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