Ba Kelalan has a case for a secondary school

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Penghulu George Sigar Sultan

BA KELALAN: Sex and drugs are two of the social ills parents here are worried about, once their children have to leave for Lawas to continue Form 1 at a tender age.

Penghulu George Sigar Sultan said due to such high possibilities faced by the youngsters from here once they move to further their studies in Lawas, there is an urgency to build a secondary school here.

“I am very worried because currently, our students who have to pursue their Form 1in Lawas are still too young to face the challenge of a new environment when their parents are too far away to monitor them

“And because many of them come from poor families, many, especially girls, have fallen into illicit sex for money and the boys experiment with drugs,” Sigar told BAT IV at his Long Ubau village.

He said the government must look into the matter seriously to prevent the situation from getting out of hand.

“All we need is a secondary school that can cater from Form One up to Form Three, such as the one at Bario because after primary six, a student is still too young to look after themselves in a faraway place like Lawas,” said Sigar.

Lawas can be reached in 40 minutes by air or about five hours by road from here.

Sigar also requested the government to provide electricity to the highland dwellers here who are predominantly Lun Bawang.

“Currently, we depend on our generators. It would be meaningful if that after 51 years of independence, we could have proper electricity supply like other places,” he pointed out.

And as the community needs to catch up with information technology, the penghulu also urged the government to start a proper tele-centre here.

“As of now, it is as if we are in the Stone Age since we can’t communicate with our relatives and friends in the outside world,” he stressed.

Currently, he said only about 15 per cent of Ba Kelalan’s nine villages enjoy telecommunication coverage which is located at Buduk Nur.

The other urgent need of the Lun Bawang here is for a medical doctor to be stationed at a health clinic and Buduk Nur.

A tractor cutting a sharp corner along the Ba Kelalan-Long Luping Road.

“Our two assistant medical officers in Buduk Nur can’t even extract teeth which could be a very painful experience. So I would like to request to the government to station a medical officer and at least a dental nurse at our health clinic so we don’t have to drive so far away to Lawas just to extract a tooth,” he said, adding that their only alternative now is to go to the Indonesian town of Long Bawan, which is about an hour’s drive from here.

But to seek a simple treatment such as a tooth extraction in another country is a mockery to the Malaysian government, he said.

“Actually, all we need is proper development. Even though our current assemblyman is an opposition, our MP Dato Henry Sum Agong is in the government. So we should not be penalised for that,” he said.

Meanwhile, Sigar, a former state civil servant said, the Ba Kelalan-Long Luping Road which was completed recently by the Army under the ‘Jiwa Murni’ programme needs urgent repair and maintenance as there are just too many potholes along the 75km stretch of road.