Sabah’s Tai Chi Master – Datuk Dr. Yee Moh Chai

The Minister of Resource Development and Information Technology, Datuk Dr Yee Moh Chai should stop this melodrama and exasperation over the dismal broadband services in Sabah.  Stop playing Tai Chi and away with the Mahathir syndrome because as the Minister who looks after information technology development in Sabah the buck stop with YOU!!  Grow up and take the blame like a man.  What a pathetic behavior from a Deputy Chief Minister of Sabah.

As a learned man (who happens to be a lawyer, doctor, Deputy Chief Minister of Sabah and, a British Permanent Resident), he should be aware that 2 years ago he appointed a reputable consultant to prepare the ICT blueprint for Sabah (unless he has selected memory when he lied to the Chief Minister).  Today after more than 2 years we have yet to see the final report of this blueprint.  A check at the Unit Kemajuan IT Negeri website (http://www.sabah.gov.my/info/itmp/) still has the old IT Master Plan for Sabah which was made 15 years ago in 1996.


In the IT industry, progress relies on fast and up-to-date communication.  Anything over 6 months old are deemed obsolete.  So with the 15 year old Sabah IT Masterplan, it is well and truly a dinosaur, encased in the ancient tablets found only in the pyramids of Egypt.  How desperate it is in need of a review!!  Now the 2 sen question is can we blame the Federal Minister of Information Communication and Culture, Dato’ Dr Rais Yatim for being ignorant about the state of ICT development in Sabah when our own State Minister went AWOL?

"Tak boleh Datuk, mau wang mesti ada Masterplan"

Perhaps due to lack of any ICT Plans and real information, in his ignorance, the Federal Minister decided to give out free Netbooks to thousand of remote rural folks in Sabah who, as we know, has no electricity or let alone broadband connections.  In addition, his ministry has spent millions by giving away free Astro B’yond decoder and LCD TV to 1,800 recipients in Sabah recently…and how the rest of us in Sabah have to live with unreliable broadband services even when we do have electricity.  Sigh!!

Dato’ Rais, it seemed, is ignorant about the backwardness and the level of info-structure and utilities development in Sabah.  Dato’ Rais is, after all, from Negeri Sembilan, which is smaller than the District of Beluran.  In all honesty, I feel his mind cannot grasp the size and spread of Sabah’s population.  When he was still in high school in Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak was not in their school’s curricula.  Therefore, can we blame him if he is ignorant about Sabah?  Who was supposed to educate him about us?  We the people of Sabah or the Minister-in-charge of ICT in Sabah?

To add salt to our already open and maggoty wound to this whole episode, Yee Moh Chai is also the Minister RESPONSIBLE (with a capital R) for employment in Sabah.  Sabah is a state with the highest unemployment rate especially those categorized as “white collar” workers.  SEDIA as the implementer of Sabah Development Corridor (SDC) boasted recently that they created 32,000 jobs in 2008 and 40,000 jobs in 2009.  However, SEDIA never mention whether the 32,000 jobs are “white collar” JOBS or agriculture workers because for the same period the whole of Malaysia only managed to create less than 100,000 jobs.  This means Sabah generated 30 – 40% of employment opportunities in Malaysia!

What I want to know is where all the industries are? In comparison even the PROTON City in Tanjung Malim required a 10 year plan to generate 10,000 jobs. Tanjung Malin is close to Kuala Lumpur. Shsssss…YB Yee! Are you asleep kah?

So coming back to the issue of employment, where are all the jobs that SEDIA has boastfully claimed they have created?  Maybe being “economical with the truth” is what YB Yee’s best solution because we do not see hard-facts.  On the other hand, to be accountable the Ministry of Resource Development should provide this simple service to the public by listing through the internet and newspaper types of jobs available in Sabah.  We want to know as responsible citizens of the State, the truth!  Is that too much to ask?!

With all these Tai Chi’s and leaders going AWOL, it appears the state government is not satisfied to just making use of phantom voters during elections.  They are now even resorting to twisted, untruth reporting.  I put to Datuk Dr Yee this simple question; does Sabah really have the money for its own ICT development?  Better still, with you being in the cabinet and having firsthand knowledge of all the cabinet discussions (or am I asking too much), can the State in this moment in time even pay for the civil service salary?  Or are all these claims about billions of ringgit being spent in Sabah’s development are just some wild fantasy?  If you cannot answer this simple question then you are no more being “economical with the truth” but all the information given to the public to date becomes just blatant lies.

All the Ministers are responsible for their portfolios.  If they cannot execute their portfolios then they must take the blame.  Take it on the chin and admit their mistake, No Mahathir syndrome here by blaming others.

So to sum it up Dato’ Rias’ ignorance is as a matter of fact the whole of BN Sabah’s fault especially our dear leader, who went on absent without leave, our very own Datuk Dr Yee Moi Chai.  The buck stops with you YB Yee.  On the same note, the senior officers in the state civil service should equally share the blame for not being brave or forthright in their advice to their Ministers.  Therefore, Datuk Sri Panglima Musa Haji Aman should seriously consider that failure from the likes of Yee Moh Chai and the rest of BN Sabah, the civil service and the GLCs, REFLECTS the weaknesses of your own leadership.

Be advised Datuk Musa that your political future depends very much on your colleagues performances and the abilities of the people whom you appoint to head the GLCs and government departments.  The people of Sabah will remind you how well they perform when the next GE comes…which is just around the corner! 

Sabah Sifu