KUCHING: State DAP chairman Chong Chieng Jen said the party’s Impian Sarawak had proven it could deliver minor rural projects like Barisan Nasional (BN) does.
“While in the past the opposition was accused of all talk with no action, we now deliver minor rural projects for rural people. While in the past only BN can provide minor rural projects, now we DAP can also deliver such projects.
“Since the launch of Impian Sarawak in September last year, we have connected water supply to the doorsteps of families in the villages in Bengoh, Pakan, Limbang, Bintulu that had been neglected for decades by the BN government.
“We have helped build a house for an abused single mother whom the BN government turned its back on. We have helped construct a jetty in Sg Rassau, Sibu. We have even constructed a 3-km road for cars to reach two villages in Mambong where previously there was only a footpath,” he said at the 17th DAP Sarawak annual convention in Bintulu yesterday.
Chong, also Bandar Kuching MP and Kota Sentosa assemblyman, claimed “the Impian Sarawak Ubah brand name has struck such fear in the BN that on several occasions, projects requested by some villages and longhouses neglected by the government for years were immediately carried out after our Impian Sarawak team paid its first visit to the village.”
He said the Impian Sarawak team also helped uplift the earning capacity of the rural community.
“In Sri Aman, we gave oil palm seedlings to the native customary right (NCR) land owners whom the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) was directed (the Sarawak government) not to give by.
“In Mas Gading, we taught the women mushroom farming and handicraft work for them to earn extra income.”
He said all these programmes centred on one political message – what the BN can do, so can the opposition.
“Vote us in as the government, we can do a lot better than the BN. This message has been continuously delivered to the rural folks through our regular publication and free distribution of Ubah Sarawak newsletter.”
The three thrusts of DAP’s Impian Sarawak Go-Rural projects, according to Chong, are improving the living environment, uplifting the earning capacity and enhancing the political minds of the people in rural areas.
“These will continue so long as DAP is in Sarawak.”