Wires, wires everywhere but no electricity
Posted on June 25, 2015, Thursday
TR Selat showing the bills paid for internal wiring as well as the letter of approval from Maradong District Council.
An electricity pole situated too close to a longhouse pose a danger to the longhouse residents.
Rumah
Numpang which is part of the Stamau settlement has yet to have
electricity though one can see cables linking the main grid to the
longhouse.
BINTANGOR: About one-third of the 120 Iban longhouses in the outskirts of the town here have yet to enjoy electricity supply.
This has brought much frustration to residents in these longhouses as they have to depend on generators for power.
At Rumah Selat Lai, which is about 4 km from the town, the people of the 32-door longhouse have been waiting impatiently for electricity supply to their homes for the last two years.
Tuai Rumah Selat disclosed that the Meradong District Officer had even written him a letter of approval for electricity supply to their longhouse.
“We have been very hopeful that we would get our electricity supply since two years ago as we already paid for the internal wiring. We had even bought the electrical appliances such as ceiling fans and refrigerators.
“But until now we could only see the internal wiring in our houses but there is no electricity. So we really hope the relevant authorities would assist us soonest possible as we are now spending about RM300 per month on our generator sets to light up our homes,” he said.
It is very challenging for their children to concentrate on their studies as they could only afford limited electricity supply every night.
“We could only turn on our generator a few hours every night because petrol is very expensive and most of us are general workers,” he said.
During festive seasons when celebrations last from 6 pm to 6 am each door had to spend RM300 on the fuel which is a heavy burden for the longhouse folks.
Citing longhouses along Jalan DJD and Jalan Sasi as examples, longhouse chief Rami Sandai, 52, said there were even some areas where within the same settlement, some longhouses had electricity while some were left out.
“In my area, there are nine longhouses. Out of the nine longhouses, eight have been having electricity since 1988, but one of our longhhouses, Rumah Numpang still has not have electricity.
“We don’t understand why this is happening. It just does not make sense. Rumah Numpang is not a new longhouse coming up but was built the same time as ours. And imagine how they feel, looking at us having electricity and they don’t,” Rami told the BAT team yesterday.
There are eight longhouses at the settlement of Stumau, which is about 8km away from Bintangor Town.
Rumah Numpang is just 1km away from Rumah Rami.
This 9-longhouse settlement is known for its woodwork as most of the families are involved in one way or another in this craft.
The rising income of the residents has enabled them to replace their old wooden longhouses with new concrete structures.
However, rebuilding their longhouses on a different plot of land created new problems.
One family of Rumah Rami has an electricity pole erected on the land of their unit.
“What we are worried is that proximity to our longhouse might pose a danger to us,” said Rami.
Apart from electricity supply, housing loan is another problem for the longhouse folks of Stamau.
Another longhouse chief Rebi Kalasau, 72, hoped the State Housing Development Corporation (HDC) could provide loans for his 23-door longhouse to build their new homes.
“As you can see, we are now building new longhouse to replace our old one that is no longer fit to be occupied. Since we start our building project about five years ago, we have been applying for housing loans from HDC. Each household is applying for RM15,000 to build our new concrete longhouse.
“We have applied twice and until now, we have heard nothing from HDC. We really hope the government would help us,” said Rebi.
Meanwhile, Zakaria Abdullah, who is actively involved in woodcraft highlighted that the abolition of the Lanang Bridge Toll had been a boon for the village folks.
“We have been selling our woodcraft products to Sibu. Every week I have to go to Sibu three times. And within one day, I might even have to commute between Sibu and Bintangor three times to bring our products.
The abolition of the toll really lessened our burden,” said Zakaria.
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