The Pan Borneo Highway

The Pan Borneo ‘Highway’

          The Pan Borneo Highway is a very long and very long trunk road that has the link to Sabah, Brunei and Indonesia.  It must have a lot of feeder roads branching out all along the way.  If we take a bird’s view of,  it must look like a millipede. Though the Pan Borneo Highway is crowned “Highway”, it does not have much quality of the “Highway” that I know.  To express it  in %, how many % of it has reached the status or not at all.  I hope the ones who use the road often can help to evaluate / assess the trunk road and feeder roads to tell everybody the real conditions of the Pan Borneo trunk road in Sarawak, especially.  When corruption and collusion is so rampant, what can we expect to have the quality?

          To me a qualified highway should have the width and the thickness of asphalt layer specified properly.  It has a proper drainage system to prevent landslide.   How wide should it be?  How wide is the Pan Borneo trunk road from one end of Sarawak to another?  Let’s focus on the Pan Borneo trunk road in Sarawak.

          According to the reports in See Hua Daily News (on 22-23 Dec), the width of the road is 3.5 metres (Am I right? I don’t have the newspaper with me to refer to now.)  Find out the width.  But generally, the road look narrow and winding.  I travelled along it from Sibu to Kuching and Kuching to Sibu in 2008.  I had some gleam of it.  Hence I personally experience travelling on this “Highway” to blare and for other sections of the road, I got the ideas from the newspaper reports and by the words of mouth. 

          The poor road conditions, poor road users, poor car conditions, careless, reckless………..all contribute to fatal road accidents.  It is recorded to claim 3 lives daily and 365 days X 3 =???.  I wish Michael Manyin and Yong Khoon Seng ministers of the Public Works Department will do the calculation together.  I hope he will learn not to blame the road users responsible for 60% of the fatal road accidents when the BN government has never tried hard to improve and upgrade the road properly. 

Just recall, how many times he told us through the newspapers that it is hard and hard to upgrade the road thoroughly and speed up the work.  He told us at RM 16 billion are required to upgrade the whole trunk road from one end of Sarawak to another end. And he told the BN government does not have so much money to do so?  Hei………………he plays blind and deaf to the report of RM????????????????? in billion (RM2000亿) flowing out of the country illegally for laundering.  What a bullshit to say that the BN government does not have the money to upgrade our roads.  But he does not  seem to be able to get the allocation funds for upgrading at different sections of the road.  He always tells us to wait and wait for the funds to come when he get his pay monthly without any delay.  Is he doing your work?

The road system is one of important items that we people will evaluate and assess to decide whom to vote BN or PR.  Now we have the choice and we have the confidence to say that PR can perform well and even better if they are given the trust.  It is based on our personal observations of the states led by PR pact.  Well…… this is the age of awareness what people rights are.  Many plights we see, hear or experience are because of the poor policies and governance of the BN government.  It is the practice of autocracy as against democracy.  In the past, we people just trusted our leaders so much so that the practice of democracy has gone haywire and made a turn to autocracy.

Nobody will disagree with me that Malaysia led by the BN government by law is democratic but autocratic in practice.  We have enough evidences to say that/ so.  No matter how they blast and slogan “People first” and “Meritocracy based on performance”, it is really not much when we express the practices:  Democracy :  Autocracy  in % or ratio.  In Sarawak, we people generally agree that Taib Mahmud and his cronies have controlled almost all the  resources here.  They are bottomlessly greedy （贪得无厌）.  Have we not suffered enough?

Someone from Kapit complained about not having regular supply of  water from the tape almost daily for so long and they were not attended to (23^rd Dec 2012).  Who is the elected and highly paid minister responsible for the area?  Where is he?  What a shame and curse.  Count the number of houses which still do not have water and electricity supply in Sarawak.  Assess the penetration rate of telecommunication to different rural areas.  Check the access roads that our poor and helpless people travel.  Look at the medical services they can access.  For emergency cases, how many lives have been wasted due to irresponsible and poor helicopter services.  Which ministers care to stand up and speak out to rectify the situations?  Why did so many pupils, male and female cram in the same dormitory room for almost a year in Punan Ba?  Do Taib Mahmud and his cronies feel ashamed over all these plights that have plagued the poor and helpless people?  Have they ever felt any pang of remorse to lead such luxurious life at the expense of the mass, poor and helpless.

Taib Mahmud and his cronies will one day face the shame and humiliation like Hosni Mubarak, ex-president of Egypt and his cronies.  Just wait and see.