RURAL Development Minister Datuk Ewon Ebin is confident that the lack of basic amenities in the rural areas could be solved by the end of next year.
“My ministry is confident that basic amenities in the rural areas such as roads, water and electricity supplies can be solved by the end of 2012,” he said in his winding-up speech yesterday.
Ewon said last year, about 206.15km of roads involving 97 projects in the rural areas were completed.
“About 368.58km of roads are expected to be completed this year. For water supply in the rural areas, as of March 31, about 21 projects had been carried out,” he said adding that the other projects under the approved allocation ceiling were in the various stages of implementation.
He also pointed out that the federal government, through the Regional and Rural Development Ministry in 2010 had allocated RM105,632,800 to build 2,348 new houses under the House Aid Program and also to repair 319 houses.
“For 2011, about RM110,270,000 has been allocated to the state to build 2,364 new houses and to repair 77 houses which would be implemented by the district offices, sub-district offices, Kota Kinabalu City Hall, and municipal councils of Tawau and Sandakan,” he said.
He said this amount did not involve another RM6,741,000 allocation which would be implemented by Giat Mara.
On the suggestion by the Balung assemblyman Datuk Syed Abas Syed Ali that the responsibility to eradicate poverty must be centralized under one agency only, Ewon said poverty eradication involved the enhancement of quality of life such as the building and repairing of houses and other basic infrastructures and these programmes could not be implemented by only one agency or department.
“Multi-agency is vital to ensure the holistic method in tackling the poverty problem,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ewon dismissed claims that the government had failed to eradicate poverty in targeted areas in Sabah as claimed by Sri Tanjong assemblyman Jimmy Wong.
He said poverty had been solved in Tawau, including Jimmy’s constituency of Sri Tanjung that has been declared as zero poverty.
The government, said Ewon, has implemented various poverty eradication programmes, including the introduction of estates for the hardcore poor for which each participant received RM400 dividends from January 2010 onwards.
He also dismissed Jimmy’s allegation that the channelling of dividends to the hardcore poor was not practical as through this dividend, it had increased the income of heads of hardcore poor households in the district and had moved them out of the hardcore poor category.