Why can’t the state government take care of its own people like the oil palm plantation company take care of their oil palm trees?

The plantation company even have a nursery for young palm trees to be planted on permanent land lots. When planted, the young trees are fed, well nourished and well taken care of by their plantation masters, much more carefully and attentively than how some people are being taken care of by the government, said Chiew Chin Sing (DAP-Kidurong) during the debate on the motion of thanks to the Head of State yesterday.

He was referring to the squatter families staying in shacks in Jalan Tanjung Kidurong, Bintulu, alongside the company’s oil palm trees.

“Oil palm trees have their lots but the squatters still do not have their own plots where they can build their own homes,” he said.

These people do not even have water supply, their shacks are made of boxes, discarded planks or roofs of waste zinc sheets and they are left out there in the cold with nobody caring for them, Chiew pointed out.

dap sarawak chiew He asked, “Are humans not worth so much more that the oil palm trees where you can draw out a plot of land, for them to grow, you care for them, water them, feed them with fertilizer and prune them over the years and make sure that they do not get sick and the most that they give you are some branches of fruits over the years.”

“But really how much are they really worth when compared to the worth of a fellow human being? Chiew asked, adding that “had we given the same amount of care to our fellow men as to the oil palm trees, our rewards from that investment in these human beings would be much more than the oil palm trees.”

'Almighty' Land & Survey staff

The DAP elected rep said that a whole generation had grown up living in shacks along the Tg Kidurong Road, many under harsh environment, gone to school and many became productive workforces for the Bintulu economy while some had entered college for tertiary education.

He said only a land plot occupied by two oil palm trees is big enough for a family to build a house, “so why can’t we plant two less oil palm tree so that we can spare the land for a family to build a house and own a home?”

For one thing, it would negate the need for the Land and Survey Department to go out and demolish their houses one day.

This would save the department from compensating these people when they had to be moved out.

Chiew also blasted at what he described as the arrogant attitude of Land and Survey Department staff who, backed by rifle-wielding police personnel, came in trucks and armed with chainsaws and sledge hammers to "flex their muscles at these squatters".

“But what is so great about tearing down their homes when they have nothing to fight back with except only shed tears of sorrow and heart break, seeing their very own homes built with their sweat and blood, and their only property and hope, being taken down piece by piece?’" he added.

Chiew asked whether thay are trying to show off the brutal might of the sledge hammer and chainsaw of the department and wondered why "if they are so mighty, how come they are afraid to be identified as they do not even wear their name tags?"

The three-term state assemblyperson also called for the scrapping of the billion-ringgit aluminium smelter plant in Similajau, Bintulu because of its adverse environmental impact, particularly the effects of pollution both on the ground and in the air.

The project to draw energy supply from the yet-to-be-completed Bakun hydro dam is a joint venture between Australia's Rio Tinto and CMS, a public listed company linked to the family interests of Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud.