This Minister Stupid Or What?

Hantu Laut


Obviously, the Minister is only listening to employers who wouldn't want to pay the minimum wage to maximise profits for themselves.


Has she randomly interviewed employees to find out their side of the story and the true situation? This minister is only trying to prove a point to justify the mistake made in the computation of minimum wage for East Malaysia.


The current median wage for Sabah could be RM577 but that is an anomaly that have not been corrected for decades because of the presence of illegal immigrants who are prepared to accept low pay.Why should Sabahans be subjected to such poor treatment.


It is also ironic that the proposed minimum wage in Sabah and Sarawak is lower than West Malaysia, whereas the cost of living is much higher in East Malaysia.


The West Malaysian civil servants who did the computation should have their heads examine.I reckoned they are just too lazy to carry out a fact finding mission to get the correct data and reliable feedback from the ground.


I simply could not accept the argument that RM800 minimum wage is too much and would kill Sabah economy.It's absurd, a lame excuse and a lot of craps where it is coming from.


Employers in Sabah are used to low productivity whereby they employ two persons to do one person's job.This is false economy and the minister should be bright enough to understand what she just said is a lot of rubbish. Minimum wage for Sabah should be higher than West Malaysia.


I pay my maid who is a foreigner on work pass RM1,000.00 per month, free food, free accommodation and paid return fare every two years to her country for 3 weeks holiday.I don't believe people, particularly, Sabahans, should earn anything less than RM1,000. per month.


To reduce costs employers should teach their workers to be more systematic to increase productivity.Your workers performance is dependent on how you train them.Paying less is not going help increase productivity, it'll only help keep us in the economic backwater.


Businesses may close shop if, Sabah minimum wage RM900: Minister


Kuala Lumpur: The RM800 monthly minimum wage set for Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan is far above the current median wage, Deputy Minister of Human Resources Datuk Maznah Mazlan said Monday.

She said the current median wage for Sabah and Labuan was RM577 whereas in Sarawak it was RM738.

"In Sabah, for example, the RM800 minimum wage is 39 per cent more than the median wage, which means that no less than 50 per cent of workers in Sabah will get a raise of at least 39 per cent," she said after opening the Human Resource Ministry-National Institute of Public Administration (Intan) executive discourse on "Implementation of Minimum Wage Catalyst for a High-Income Nation", here.

Maznah said the minimum wage set for Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan was agreed upon by representatives of both employees and employers, after taking into consideration the different factors affecting the states involved.

She said if the minimum wage was set at RM900 like in the peninsula, it was feared that employers, especially the smaller ones, would face difficulty in carrying on their business or might have to shut down altogether.

"The surge to RM900 would shock employers and it certainly has its implications whereby employees could lose jobs, which would ultimately lead to many other problems," she said.

The Congress of Unions of Employees in the Public and Civil Services (Cuepacs) had called on the Government to set the minimum wage for the private sector in Sabah and Sarawak at RM1,000, saying employees in those states faced a high cost of living.

While announcing the minimum wage on April 30, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak had said that the difference in the wage was just for a start and that the Government hoped it could be streamlined to a single rate nationwide.- Bernama

Rotten Cheese By Any Other Name Is Still Rotten.

Hantu Laut

Raja Petra wrote "The East Malaysians are not concerned about transparency, accountability, good governance, human rights, civil liberties, etc. Those are values and notions of those in West Malaysia, in particular the urbanites. In East Malaysia it is about nationalism and self-rule. And they do not feel by voting PKR or DAP they will achieve that."

Wrong! We do care and much more. However, we don't want to suffer a fate worse than death............... from the frying pan into the fire.We are not about to replace the devil we know with the devil in sheep clothing.

So, we are likely to vote BN again.

Anwar Ibrahim does not impress us at all. His slate is not as clean as what he projects himself to be.We still remember what he did to Sabah before.He was DPM and No.2 most powerful man in the government that he now accused of massive corruptions.What was he doing then, sleeping or participating ?

The unfortunate things about West Malaysians, when it comes to politics, they are emotional and irrational, they can't separate the wheat from the chaff.They want to change just for the sake of change without looking at the replacement government under the microscope, blinded by the opposition's rhetoric, they missed seeing the very same kind of germs they wanted to get rid off .

In the case of RPK, East Malaysia is a lost horizon to him, he may know the Malays and West Malaysians' psyche well but he knows little of East Malaysians.

RPK has forgotten the fact that Sabahans are politically more savvy and practical, we have been through four different governments, we don't make as much noise as the West Malaysians, we don't scream, shout, drum the empty cans or throw insults, we quietly wait for polling day and quietly cast our votes and when the results came out the following evening. Shabas!, Sabahans have exercised their democratic rights wisely, we sent the incumbents off to the twilight zone.

We have changed wayward government at least three times in the past.We sent USNO to the dustbin of history, Berjaya to the grave, both never recovered, USNO was de-registered, Berjaya was dissolved and someone pocketed the money from sale of the Berjaya building.The same ex-Berjaya leaders are now in SAPP screaming their heads off calling for clean government and Sabah for Sabahans.These political eunuchs think Sabahans are stupid.What good is Sabah in the hands of uncaring and corrupt leaders like them.

Than came Anwar Ibrahim with his politics of federalism, culture of fear, threatened a few PBS leaders with prosecution for corruptions and, unashamedly, engineered a coup, offering the few PBS kataks money and positions to jump ship that brought down the thin-majority PBS government.

Today, the same PBS turncoats are either in SAPP or BN, also screaming their heads off against corruptions and Sabah for Sabahans.

Why should Pakatan leaders complain about Najib and the Perak coup when their de facto leader was as guilty as sin in the Sabah coup.The three dinguses in Perak must have been offered attractive packages using the Anwar's well tested formula, accept the red package or prosecution for corruptions .

Sabah and Sarawak will again be the kingmakers and let hope this time around, unlike the ungrateful Pak Lah, our PM Najib Tun Razak give more credits to Sabahans and the Sabah CM for delivering the seats.I am positive Sabah and Sarawak would deliver a comfortable majority.

We are likely to lose a few state and parliamentary Chinese seats to DAP .The others, PKR, PAS and local parties SAPP, Star and the one suffering the same malady as Anwar of wanting to be NO.1 and Huguan Siou of the KDM people would be severely trounced.Yong of SAPP and Jeffery Kitingan of UBF have lost credibility with the people.

West Malaysian politicians learned a lot about dirty money politics from East Malaysians, particularly Sabahans.

There were no money politics and "politik katak" (strangely, some Malaysian writers are confused between frog and frogging, they are not the same, frogging is a coat fastening consisting a loop and a button and leapfrogging has nothing to do with politics either) in Peninsula Malaysia before.

Nothing to be proud of, Sabahans do it all the times, as they strongly believe in democracy and no one should be deprived of the freedom of association, which kind of the same as the First Amendment of the Constitution of the U.S.To protect their backside and to stop elected representatives from leaving the party for another, PBS during its tenure, introduced anti-hop law in Sabah

The only difference, in Malaysia, freedom come, freedom go, with the dirty hands of politics.

PBS "anti-katak" law passed in the Sabah state assembly was later abrogated by the BN, reason being it was against Article 10 of the Federal constitution.The irony is, the same article also made it illegal for the government to stop peaceful assembly and they did, everytime without fail, forcefully stopped such assembly, knowing it was against the constitution.

Even more ironic when Anwar Ibrahim blow his trumpet of an impending coup in the BN, where he claimed to have enough support of BN MPs to topple the BN, one clown in UMNO, a minister with very short memory, one Zaid Ibrahim said he would proposed to the cabinet to pass an anti-hop law.This same man later joined Anwar Ibrahim's PKR.

What happened to Article 10? Isn't it supposed to be"What sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander?

Can you trust politicians?Aren't they all the same. A bunch of liars and lawbreakers.

Money politics has become a way of life for our politicians.It has nothing to with principle or conscience, it's all about money and position.Unfortunately, in UMNO some are made sacrificial lambs to appease the opposition when everyone in the party, including the top echelon are rotten to the core.

In Malaysia those who joined politics are out to make money, don't kid yourself that they are out to serve the people.

Sabahans have learned a bitter lesson, changing government in the hope of getting better leaders and better administration of the state is like chasing the receding horizon, you can see it but never able to reach it.

Every succeeding government do exactly the same as the one you gotten rid off.

So, we may, again stay with the devil we know, not, as RPK says, we don't care about good governance, human rights and civil liberties, we do, but we are just fed up with every leader that came along with empty promises and lies.

Rotten cheese called by any other name is still rotten.

Ghosts Of The Past

Hantu Laut

Some have skeletons in the closet that would only haunt them decades later.

Ghosts of the past coming back to haunt those who betrayed the poor kampong folks or was it a ploy by the oppositions. Read the story below.

Angry Murut converts cry foul over land promise

TENOM: Murut natives who had converted to Islam in 1979, under the then Berjaya government-linked mass Islamisation programme which promised new ‘recruits’ individual land titles, are now claiming that the government had cheated them.

The converts were given land plots in Kpg Masanopi, Kembong and have been occupying this area since then. However they have now discovered that the land is not theirs and instead belongs to someone else.

A villager, Ariffin Abdullah, 70, whose original name is Arot Bin Ukab, said that the ‘planned’ village was created in 1979 during the rule of the Berjaya government as a new settlement for a group of Muruts who were willing to convert to Islam.

The converts then went on to develop and till the land providing for themselves by planting rubber trees, orchards and padi. Ariffin was their village head or Ketua Kampung.

But now, so many years later, the villagers who were promised their individual land titles had found out that their settlement area belonged to someone else.

“What is most disappointing is that the land owner turns out to be the person who was entrusted by Harris Salleh (to manage the distribution of the land to us as the new converts,” Ariffin said.

“And our worst nightmare happened when we found out that the person had sold the land to a businessman.

“Imagine, now this businessman has just sued us for illegal occupation of our land!”

“The suit was lodged in Nov 29, 2011. So how can anyone blame us for feeling so humiliated and very angry,” added Ariffin.

Conned all the way

Arffin said that their hard work to develop and till the land had been going on for more than 30 years and during the three decades they were repeatedly assured their land titles would be issued to them in due course.

According to the official records, the first single land title was issued on Oct 30, 1980 under the name of Mohamad Abdul Rahman (then the District Officer of Tenom).

Another was issued to one Anthony Lamb and yet another to Theodore Douglas Lind (the former official of the then Chief Minister).

Ariffin claimed that these three persons were entrusted by Harris to manage and administer the land for the benefit of the converts, but they never got to have the individual land titles issued to the different families as they had promised.

“Instead, they spent the whole 30 over years asking us to be patient.

“But now it is proven (that) their plan (all along) was to own the land, and now thyey have sold it behind our backs,” added Ariffin.Read more.

Let's Hope It's Not "Panas -Panas Tahi Ayam"

Hantu Laut

Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak announced that the government will soon launch a massive operation to flush out illegal immigrants in Sabah. He said those without valid documents will be deported to a country that is willing to accept them. What that means,I am not sure. One thing I know for sure not many countries will accept them if they are not citizens of the country.Even the Philippines government have refused to accept its own citizens.

There are many Filipinos and Indonesians in Sabah who are paperless because they destroyed their travel documents to erase any hint of them being Filipinos or Indonesians.There have been cases where the Philippines government have refused to issue travel documents to allow them to return to their country after being arrested by our security forces.

The Philippines government refusal to open consulate office in the state to expedite issuance of travel documents to its citizens and not dropping its claims on Sabah should be viewed as unfriendly and a form of aggression towards Malaysia.The Indonesians have been more accommodating with repatriation of her citizens.They have two consulate offices in Sabah.

Many Filipinos are languishing in detention camps at the expense of  the Malaysian taxpayers because the bloody irresponsible and shameless Philippines government couldn't care less about its citizens. Every government that came along had ignored the problems leaving the burden to the people of Sabah to bear.

The Federal government past indifference to the problem is a permeation of its arrogance when it was less politically vulnerable and conveniently chose to ignore the plea of Sabahans to deal with the problems.

Let's hope this time it is not another exercise to pull the wool over Sabahans' eyes like all previous exercises, as the Malay idiom, panas-panas tahi ayam (temporal heat of chicken shit) says of such gestures that is insincere and short-lived.

Just rounding up those illegals and sending them back to their home country is not going to remove the thorn in the flesh.Almost all of those that have been sent back, somehow, returned either illegally, some with the help of corrupt personnel in our enforcement and security forces and others with the help of equally corrupt Immigration officers of their home country, given new passport with new identity. The vicious cycle goes round and round and we would be back to square one unless something concrete, sincere and viable is implemented.

As the Philippines government are not helpful and not responding to our appeal, harsh measures must be taken to resolve the problem once and for all.

The Federal government should consider doing all of the following.

1.The task force empowered to flush out illegals should comprise at least 30% Sabahans.The reason behind this is that the personnel from Peninsula can't tell the difference between the 'ducks and the chickens', only Sabahans can tell whether they are illegal immigrants or not.

2.Close the border with the Philippines for the next six months to incoming traffic and repatriate as many illegals as possible during the period.

3.All illegals, before being sent back, must be photographed and fingerprinted and such details to be made available on all Immigration computers at all entry points in Sabah. If poor country like Cambodia can keep a bank of photographs of all its visitors to the country, no reason Malaysia not able to do so, as long as no one profit too much from purchase of the software and equipments.

4.Refuse re-entry of those that have been sent back and only allow those with confirmed employment contract to enter. 

5.Increase  air and sea surveillance of the sea borders with our neighbours.

6.Naturalise those who had been here for two decades or more.

The government is either ignorant or closed its eyes to the massive corruption within the enforcement agencies.Here lies the most insidious disease of all and one which can easily be wiped out if there were strong will to do so.

It's time the government carry out intense indoctrination of the enforcement agencies on the importance of patriotism and the dire consequence of taking bribes from illegal immigrants.

Ask both legitimate and illegal immigrants or any Sabahan for that matter about the infamous check point at Mile 38 Kota Kinabalu-Sandakan-Tawau highway. How some of those manning the check point were rumoured to be able to collect more than what the Prime Minister is paid.The check point has since been closed down.

Sabahans have to be practical about this long-standing issue and not be too unreasonable and demand the impossible as expressed by some KDM leaders that they want the state to be totally rid of all Filipinos and Indonesians.

On humanitarian ground, as much as we hated it, some of those who have been here for decades should be considered for naturalisation. 

To think that only Sabahans are faced with this problem is a fallacy.The U.S have similar problem with its Hispanic neighbour and many European countries faced similar threat from influx of African and Asian immigrants legal or otherwise.

Sabah is in a sorrier state because there are just too many of them which require some cleaning up by the Federal government.

Let's hope this is not another 'panas-panas tahi ayam'

It's The Singer Not The Song

Hantu Laut

Sabah, the poorest and most backward state in Malaysia seems to have the magic wand when it comes to giving away their money to charity.

Seemingly poor Sabahans are not so poor after all when it's time to give away their money for a good cause.This act of charity and compassion can be seen in many charity concerts/functions held in the state, where almost every function, no matter how crappy the show is, have been well attended.

It's interesting to note that the people of this poor state can be so generous in spite of being called backward and poor. Where the hell their money come from?They probably have stacks of money hidden under their pillows.

The recent cyclone in Burma and earthquake in China have brought tragic and massive deaths and destruction to people and properties.As usual funds were raised by the government and the media by asking the public to donate.

In Sabah, a local newspaper the Daily Express launched a donation drive soon after the disasters.To date it has collected the amount as shown below:

1.China quake disaster RM453,275.80

2.The Myanmar cyclone disaster RM132,484.00

The total collection is almost touching RM600,000. and would be closed on Thursday, 29th May.

Similarly, the Star launched its donation drive about the same time and has collected as follows:

1. China quake disaster RM 33,031.00

2. Myanmar cyclone disaster RM134,500.00

The total amount collected by the newspaper now stands at RM167,531.00

I have no idea whether there are other newspaper in Peninsula besides the Star that are also collecting donations for the two disasters.

Call it stupidity or good nature, Sabahans have been very patience with the Federal government over the issue of illegal immigrants for many decades. Now they have to suffer the consequences of their stupidity. There are more illegal immigrants than locals in the state.Many illegal immigrants have obtained citizenship by dubious means.

Just go to any towns on the east coast, Tawau, Lahad Datu and Sandakan, you probably think you are in Mindanao or Sulawesi.

Sabahans, for their good nature have become strangers in their own land.