Dr Sim (front row, 11th left) leads the cake-cutting ceremony to mark SUPP Stampin sub-branch fourth anniversary celebration. Also on stage is Lo (front row, ninth left).
KUCHING: Local Government Minister Datuk Dr Sim Kui Hian has hit out at the state Democratic Action Party (DAP) on claiming credit for pointing out problems affecting the people.
He said DAP Sarawak should not resort to pointing fingers and making irrelevant ‘noises’ (complaints); instead, they should strive to solve the problem.
“If the DAP think they can do it better, why not they address the complaints instead? Rather than pointing here and there, making noises, why don’t they cooperate and work with us – work with the relevant authorities?” he argued.
Dr Sim – who is Batu Kawah assemblyman – cited Stampin as an example of a parliamentary constituency that had not seen significant changes over the past five years because ‘some people just go about pointing fingers’.
“The importance of political powers in the right hands is extremely crucial,” he pointed out.
“Stampin is an area where my late father Tan Sri Datuk Amar Sim Kheng Hong, in the 1980s, fought for the illegal squatters to have a place not just to call home but also for them to become land owners for the first time. These are facts that should never have been ‘misrepresented or misinterpreted’ through history,” he stressed.
Dr Sim was making these remarks in officiating at SUPP Stampin sub-branch fourth anniversary celebration and also mid-autumn dinner at Stampin Resettlement Scheme community hall recently.
On matters relating to residents’ complaints and infrastructure improvements on the area, he pointed out that politicians were not ‘magicians’.
“The DAP cannot just point out a problem and expect us to make it disappear or expect that we will resolve it immediately. We do things. We resolve problems. We take proper action with the specific authorities to solve the complaints and issues, but all these would take time as there are protocols to be followed.
“Just because there’s a waiting time-frame, it does not mean that we are not doing anything to resolve (problems) – it simply means that it’s still in process,” he explained.
Dr Sim, who is also Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) president, underlined that most of the time works were in progress after the councillors had gone to the ground.
However on subsequent days, the DAP members would point at complaint sites and make ‘noises’ about how this and that had not been done or completed.
“Let me remind the public that works are already in progress in terms of paperwork and everything else; yet, the DAP takes advantage of the situation by ‘pointing (fingers)’ just for the sake of a picture (on the media) – probably to claim credit that they had been the ones making noises and therefore, works were being done. That’s utterly undermining of them,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dr Sim took the time to thank the organising chairman of the BDC sub-branch/Sentosa branch chairman, Liew Zhi Kuang.
The celebratory event was also attended by Batu Kitang assemblyman Lo Khere Chiang and political secretaries to the chief minister, Tan Kai and Datuk Alfred Yap.
Dr Sim said he would be working very hard towards enhancing the council’s management, stressing that no excuses would be acceptable.
He said he wanted works to be done at all cost – be it a switch of manpower or in management approach.