KOTA KINABALU: Sabah DAP advisor and member of parliament for Kota Kinabalu Hiew King Cheu yesterday claimed that the announcement by the Government to scrap the coal-fired power plant which had been proposed to be located at Lahad Datu had come at an opportune time to pave for a better winning chance for the BN in the forthcoming 13th general election.
The government had announced on Wednesday the scrapping of the highly objected and protested coal-fired power station.
“No thanks to the BN government for scrapping the project because it had cost Sabahans five years of precious time to get on to the building of an acceptable and workable power station to supply them with stable supply of electricity in the east coast. If an acceptable new 300 MW power station had been built, the power problem would have been long solved, and sadly now we are back into square one. When can we have the new power station being finally built, another five years?” Hiew said.
According to Hiew, “the announcement to scrap the proposed coal-fired power plant came at the nick of time and looks as if this whole thing has been planned carefully and set in as part of the propaganda to harvest votes and support from the voters. This announcement came at the perfect moment of time to show that the BN government is a caring government and a government that listens to the voices and opinions of the people.”
Hiew added, “you win, but the people are not stupid too”! You put up a proposal and forced your way through to try to implement it in spite of heavy public objections, later turned around and say “okay, we gonna listen and will stop and scrap”! Just as simple as that! This had cost the people in time wasted, effort and energy, anger and aggravation and frustration, and not forgetting the financial commitments incurred. This proposal had cost the people a lot of their own money, NGOs’ financial input, SESB and TNB funds, plus the cost of all the reports made”.
“A simple announcement to scrap the project had thrown all these into the dustbin to be forgotten. What is this telling us, and what is the message it carried? This is simply telling us that the BN government is hopeless and useless. Why can’t they come up with a proper survey on public opinion and research to ensure that there is no damage and adverse effect caused by the proposal of the coal-fired power station?”
Hiew said that the decision by the government had just served as a reminder that there was always a possibility that the BN government might reinstate the proposal if they win back power in the next general election, or they can say that they will modify the process by using clean-coal technology.
He suggested that it was better to play safe by not voting BN back into power for everyone’s sake and not to be conned into doing so.