KUCHING, Aug 29 — Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) parliamentary chief whip Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof today slammed Sarawak Pakatan Harapan (PH) chairman Chong Chieng Jen for alleging that the state government does not prioritise fixing run-down schools in Sarawak.
He said Chong’s allegation is not true and only uttered out to satisfy his own personal interest and interest of his party, the DAP.
Fadillah explained that dilapidation school projects were postponed after the 14th general election when the original Budget approved for Sarawak by the previous Barisan Nasional (BN) government was not continued by the PH federal government.
“It was not only the allocations for dilapidated school projects that had been cancelled but the allocations for other projects had also been withdrawn by the PH government,” he said when responding to Chong’s allegations that the GPS government did not give priority to dilapidated schools.
He asked if Chong, who is also the deputy minister of domestic trade and consumers, and Sarawak PH have ever defended Sarawak’s rights.
He said Chong surfaced only to politicise whatever issues, as though he is still placing himself as the Opposition at the federal level.
Fadillah, who is also PBB senior vice president, said Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Openg has freely voiced out his concern over the state’s rights, including the building of more schools and repairing of run-down schools.
He said this shows that Abang Johari is giving priority to the interest of the people and state.
He said the state government was even prepared to meet the conditions imposed by Minister of Finance Lim Guan so the repair works on the dilapidated schools can proceed, even though education is the responsibility of the federal government.
He said the determination and sincerity of the state government can be seen when it offered to lend RM1 billion to the federal government to ensure that repair works on dilapidated schools can be expedited.
He said the offer was made after the allocation of RM1 billion approved by the previous BN government was withdrawn by the PH government.
He said instead of accepting the offer, the PH federal government then asked the state government to settle RM1 billion of its total loans with the PH federal government before any allocation for fixing run-down schools could be made.
Fadillah said a sum of RM350 million out of RM1 billion has been settled by the state government.
“For the record, the previous BN federal government had approved RM2.5 billion for repairing dilapidated schools in the country for 2018 and 2019, with Sarawak and Sabah getting RM1 billion each and Peninsular Malaysia, RM500 million.
“Just before the GE14 last year, the previous federal government had set aside RM419.05 million to refurbish dilapidated schools in Sarawak while the remainder RM581 million was supposed to be set aside for his year,” he said.
Earlier today, Chong, who is also the Sarawak DAP chairman, questioned the ruling GPS government for not taking the initiative to start the repair works, if it felt repair works should be made a top priority.
