Q: How do you propose to tackle the illegal immigrant problem in Sabah?A: Simple to get rid of them from our state unless they have proper documentation, meaning to say they are holders of their national passport. If they have no passport they are not allowed and they are not supposed to be in Sabah. So, if they are undocumented we will just have to send them back to their respective countries.
Q: It is possible to round up all of them over a specified period and deport them?
A: I have done it 18 years ago, if I could do it 18 years ago surely I can do it now if LDP forms the government.
Q: How would you ensure top positions in the Federal Departments in Sabah are headed by qualified Sabahans and not from the peninsula?
A: I think this question has to be clarified. We are one Malaysia, we cannot just have departments here to be headed by Sabahan we also expect Sabahan to head departments in all over Malaysia. Why should we be ‘parochial’ and confined our Sabahan civil service to Sabah only, they need exposure and we need to have them throughout Malaysia, we are not going to confine our civil servants to Sabah only that is not fair to them and likewise if there are good officers from West Malaysia or Sarawak who can help Sabah why not? We can never and we must never be parochial, we must never. But having said that of course what we need to do is to groom to make sure that all our civil servants have the opportunity to go up whether within Sabah or outside of Sabah and that is important.
Q. Food security is a major issue. Yet there are lot of idle lands in Sabah. What do you think should be done about it?
A: Yeah, true Sabah has abandoned lands and in fact a lot of our lands are vacant, are not properly utilised, those lands which belong to the state which are not individual owned belongs to state.
Estate land, I’m sure a lot can be done, what we can do is to ensure there are proper investors, genuine investors as say for instance from Taiwan, from South Korea, from Japan and even from China, those who are really good and proven record good company in terms of producing planting rice, say for instance. We should invite them to come and develop, help us to develop for a win-win situation.
I think this is important, we need to really focus on food technology, food production in Sabah which today is not there. We don’t see it, so we need to be producer of basic foodstuff, rice, other related agricultural crops which are edible, I think potato, sweet potato and from there going downstream, these are all high tech and proven can be done in Japan, in South Korea especially and especially in Taiwan. So these are the countries that an LDP government will look into and we will invite them to come over to help us increase our food production.
Q: English proficiency is vital. This would allow our youngsters to secure jobs overseas if unable at home and repatriate their income back to Sabah. Would you follow Sarawak’s proposal in this regard for English medium schools while strengthening Bahasa Malaysia since Sabah has its own State Education Ministry?
A: This will of course, anybody that runs the government, any party that runs Sabah if it’s in the interest of our Sabahan, it should be done whether we follow Sarawak or we don’t follow Sarawak.
I think the point here is English proficiency has to be improved and today we see a lot of professionals even lawyers couldn’t write proper English in their letters. So I think it is very important to ensure that there is now a programme.
We must change the education system while emphasising the importance of Bahasa Malaysia as our National language we must give full expression to the usage of English.
Today we do have quite a number of international schools in Sabah which they are all in English medium. Why not, we surely can make use of all the existing, established mission schools.
Revert them back, give them the opportunity to decide whether they should use English medium as their medium of instruction. We have the basic mission school in Sabah and that will be a good start, provided all these Mission schools if they revert into English, Bahasa Malaysia has to be the core compulsory subject and that has to be equally emphasised.
Q. Would you introduce a racial quota in filling state civil service jobs for sake of fairness and ethnicity since Sabah has many ethnic groups?
A: In fact there has all along been that practice of giving fairness to all the major races in Sabah especially the KadazanDusun, the Malay and the Chinese. These are the three main racial group and in the past in fact there is this system of 30-30-40 – 30 Chinese, 30 Kadazan-Dusun and 40 the Malays or rather 40 KadazanDusun, 30 Malay and 30 Chinese,. Whatever, there has to be this fairness in distributing jobs especially in the government service and it’s not a question of re-introducing, it’s a question of ensuring that it is put into practice because this has been dulu (before). Many years ago I remember we have this system. But as we go along, there were these bureaucrats who were a racial-obsessed, becoming a bit biased and now today you see the imbalance. We will have to put it right of course.
Q: Would your government focus on PR for Malaysians as there are hundreds of cases of Peninsular Malaysians waiting for their PR.
A: We have, in fact. Even when I was a Chief Minister I gave a lot of PR to West Malaysians, Sarawakians because that is the authority of the Chief Minister, and if they have been here for years as lot of West Malaysians, a lot of Sarawakians have been here contributing to the state for years and their children are born here. What is wrong with giving them PR, if you can give PR to outsiders, why not to our own Malaysians.
Q: Sabah’s strategic position vis-à-vis China, Japan and South Korea puts it at greater advantage for international shipping than peninsula Malaysia. This will improve our economy without relying on Malaya too much as well as ensure more jobs for locals. Would this be a priority for your government?
A: It will be,. In fact that was stated in my first press conference on the 3rd of September. We will go all out to ensure that we get genuine investors from North Asia, China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, especially, to come here in terms of shipping, in term of connectivity, we will open Sabah to all. There is no problem.
Q: Sabah is doing much better in tourism but infrastructure-wise, we are not comparable to Sarawak the past 10 years. What would you do to ensure our fullest potentials are not wasted?
A: I don’t think that we are far behind Sarawak, as far as tourism infrastructure is concerned I think Sarawak is far behind us, in fact Sarawak has been asking us to help them simply because of our geographic logistic position in Sabah. The only place Sarawak is close to is just next door is Kalimantan and Singapore, whereas we are so near to all North Asian countries especially China. But our problem is for the last few years we have turned our state from a premier destination to a budget destination where only low budget airlines come to us and that is very sad.
So that has to be changed under a LDP State Government. We will ensure that Sabah will become once again the premier destination for tourism from all over the world, and we will bring in as many national airlines, top airlines will come back to Sabah, not low budget airlines.
Q: Sabah is the second biggest state in Malaysia and can accommodate 10 peninsula states in land area. But these 10 states have their own State Governments compared to one State Government resulting in allocations and resources having to be shared by all these districts. In the light of this is it not better to administratively separate Sabah in terms of East, North West and South (as in Kalimantan) for better development efficiency?
A: I don’t think so and I think it’s a wrong comparison to use the West Malaysia states administratively to Sabah. These West Malaysia states are actually towns, they are not states they are so small even in name they have got their own State Government, they cannot be compared with our Sabah State Government, cannot be, it’s a wrong comparison.
There is actually no need to decentralise Sabah into four division ala Kalimantan, what we need is to have an effective State Government with local government. We will just have to ensure that all the local governments in Sabah in all the districts are efficiently run which they are not today. It is a matter of efficiency from top down.
The State Government has to be efficient likewise all the district local governments, meaning Tawau Municipal Council, in Sandakan it’s the Sandakan Municipal Council, we just have to ensure that the Municipal Council in Sandakan in Tawau, in all these places are efficiently run.
They have to be efficient otherwise it’s no point to divide into four or five regions. The important thing is the local authority has to be tip-top and be able to function effectively and efficiently.
I give you an example, Kudat District Council, they have to be efficient so the State Government through the state secretary has to make sure that the ministry of Local Government, the Ministers there have to monitor the work of the Kudat District Council.
Whether there is collection efficiently, house assessment for example, whether the land and survey, the quit rent, efficiently.
Whether the Kudat District Council is running the district efficiently in term of cleaning, whether the people are working, it is as simple as that.
I mean to create another administrative region that will be unnecessary cost and then there will be a creation of new bureaucracy, another group of bureaucrats being paid unnecessarily. We have already got the structure so there is no need to have this.
Q The unemployment rate in Sabah is one of the highest in the country. This was made worse with the Covid-19 pandemic. What steps would you take as Chief Minister to reduce it in the next four years?
A: Let’s pray very hard and I believe it will go, that Covid will disappear very quickly.
Obviously Covid has caused untold pain, massive problems not just in Sabah but worldwide but I believe by the end of the year, hopefully, it will go away and once Covid is gone I am sure the whole world will come back to good order, including Sabah.
What we need to do is to ensure that the State economy gets back to its foot. I think what we have is to get the right people to come in, the right people from within Sabah and outside Sabah.
We have a lot of genuine very well established own Sabah business group that should be given the opportunity to lead in the economic redevelopment of Sabah.
We have quite a number of local listed companies like of Hap Seng, Teck Guan, so they should be invited to take the lead role to turn Sabah back to what it should have been, a vibrant economy which we are not today.
While at the same time we should also make use of our local entrepreneurs, established entrepreneurs not only for themselves to develop, to invest further but for them also to bring in because they obviously have good connection overseas to bring in foreign investors to Sabah.
I know for instance Hap Seng has very established base in Hong Kong, in China, even in Japan and they will have connections.
So that the State Government will be making use of our own Sabahan entrepreneurs, Sabahan established business people to help the State to bring in foreign investors and I think that is what is important in the long run to make sure that the State economy will be back to good order.
Q: Why should the people vote for your party in this election. What would you say are the special qualities or what does it have that the rival parties cannot offer?
A: We have 46 candidates and 99 per cent of these candidates have never stood in the election before and they have no political baggage unlike so many other parties. And we have no history of jumping.
LDP, our previous assemblymen, our previous MPs, when they were in service, when they were having their term as YB they never jumped, they never ran away.
LDP has been a party for over 31 years in Sabah for better or for worse we have been a political party that had been serving the people. So this is what makes LDP different from other parties that appears only during election.
If Sabahans notice the existing parties, they appear only during elections after elections they disappear and that including a lot of leaders supposedly running the parties today, the many political parties.
Whereas LDP’s leadership has always been there, we never ran away and now we have candidates who are new faces and I have made sure that they are willing and they are offering themselves not for positions, in fact, they are coming in to offer themselves to serve as new faces, as a new team.
I think it is high time the people in Sabah look for new faces, look for new leadership. I think it is high time that we have to give these new faces the opportunity.
LDP is offering our candidates to the people in Sabah so that if the people in Sabah have faith in us, wants to give us this opportunity, they will see how we perform. If we dont perform well within this next five years the people of Sabah will definitely have to change us and can kick us out if we don’t do good.
Q: Sabah having so many political parties is a very bad example for the new generation. Why is it not possible to have a minimum number of parties?
A: I thought that Sabah is a good example of what democracy is all about, isn’t it? How can we be dictatorial? How can we be so rough with people? We must give the people the opportunity.
The more political parties, the more the challenge, the better for the people in Sabah. They have a wider choice to decide, to choose who are the good ones, isn’t it?
This is the best expression of democracy. I don’t think we should restrict the number of political parties, I don’t think we should restrict the number of candidates. It is not right.
This is the best form of democracy. The more the merrier for people.
Q: How do you plan to resolve the chronic problem of elected representatives betraying the voters by party hopping after winning their seats?
A: I have no intention at all to do anything on party hopping. This is the individuals’ right, individuals’ decision. Whether they value self-respect, whether they value principles as humans, as politicians it is up to them.
If they don’t have self-respect, if they don’t value principles they can jump 100 times. Let the people decide whether they will still want this sort of frogs.
But I always say this – it is not just those people who jump. The biggest culprits are the parties that accepted them that caused this problem of party hopping. If there is no political party that accept these frogs, the frog will have nowhere to jump, isn’t it?
The biggest culprit are the parties that accepted these frogs and Sabahan today will have to be calm, sit down quietly, think and look back which are the parties that accepted all these frogs in the first place.
This is the problem that is causing all these instability, it’s the greed for power, the greed to have more YBs in their parties to entrench their power, to ensure that their power remains, that is why they go and encourage and buy all these frogs to come in.
But once you have frogs coming in, these parties should know that since they have no principles surely that one day they will go out and this is what happened recently, isn’t it?
It’s the party that is the biggest culprit but now they are thinking that they are angels. They all go and blame the frogs. It is the political party. Let us name the political party.
Ask Sabahans to name the political party. Which are the political parties that accept all these frogs in the first place.
I think that is important and we have to tell the whole world, the media have to tell the whole world, it’s not the frogs that are the naughty ones, it’s the party that accepted them, they are the ones that is the most dangerous and they are the ones that are not principled. They are not a principled party.
But why are we just stressing on frogs here, frogs there? Why are we not talking about party that accept them, encourage them to jump? I think your media has to be very clear on this and have to stress this.
Look at Warisan. Warisan only won 21 seats in 2018. If Warisan didn’t accept Upko yang melompat there wouldn’t be any Warisan Government today.
And subsequently, once Warisan become government, they accept lagi all the frogs from Umno. How many Umno frogs masuk Warisan, they accept with pride, they don’t complain but the moment they leave ...wah they become angels, they say that they are being betrayed.
I mean doesn’t make sense isn’t it? You media should tell the world that politicians... party has to be honest with the public, dont bluff the public. You are the ones who took all the frogs and now the frog jumps out you cry, you shout that you are being betrayed. Doesnt make sense.
Q: What is your party’s stand on the issue of corruption?
A: We have like many other right thinking people always been against corruption, this is one of the reason why I come back today.
We hated corruption, we hated hyprocracy. There are so many hypocritical politicians, di depan manis cantik, say sweet thing, di belakang making deals. That is corrupt and we know that.
That is why we are fighting all this. That is why we are saying that we, once LDP comes in we want to make sure that Sabah is cleansed of all these, not just PTIs, of corruptions , of hypocrisies, of unfairness. This is why we want to put it right so that Sabah can move ahead and can move forward.
Q: How do you plan to address the issue of fairness and equality in the civil service such as in promotions?
A: I will revert to what I have been doing when I was the Chief Minister. When I was the Chief Minister, I just ensure that all my civil servants, the dedicated, the qualified ones will get promotion.
And I will ensure that all civil servants under me, under our new LDP Government will be dedicated, diligent and will know their job. We just make sure.
Our basic expectation is we will all work as one family, as a team. Whoever is good will get promoted, whoever is not good, will not only be there but we make sure that they will be phased out. We want a good, efficient civil service in the State and that is very important. I did that way back when I was the Chief Minister.
I have been fair to all races, regardless of their background. For as long as they are qualified, for as long as they are dedicated, they will get their due when promotion comes.
Q: What assurance can you give to continue the fight for Sabah’s rights and entitlements when the going gets tough without compromising the trust that voters have placed on you?
A: Sabah rights, “Sabah for Sabahans” has been the cry of politicians, has been the cry of Sabahans for many years and has been used by politicians for their own advantages, for their own agenda.
It has been here, this cry of slogan of Sabah rights, fighting for Sabah rights, we have been hearing for many many years especially from politicians when they are out of the establishment, when they are out of the government.
You see when politicians are right inside the State Government or Federal Government, you never hear them fighting for Sabah rights. You only hear them fighting for Sabah rights when they are outside.
It takes two to tango. You just cannot cry and fight and shout for Sabah rights. You will have to engage with the Federal Government.
You will have to sit down with the Federal Government ... between the State Government and the Federal Government we have to sit down rationally, unemotionally and talk it out, what actually are our Sabah rights, what actually are our entitlements under the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) or under the Federal Constitution.
So when we ... if we do have the opportunity to run the State Government. I will invite eminent retired judges from Sabah. We have quite alot of eminent retired judges here.
I will invite them to form a special team and I will make sure that they will get to Kuala Lumpur and engage and discuss with Kuala Lumpur what actually our entitlements are. Sit down with Kuala Lumpur instead of shouting in Sabah, instead of shouting against Federal Government.
We have to be matured and we have to sit down as two entity, one State Government of Sabah and the other Federal Government of Malaysia and to talk about it, where is our entitlement, why are we not getting it.
You see when politicians are right inside the State Government or Federal Government, you never hear them fighting for Sabah rights. You only hear them fighting for Sabah rights when they are outside.
It takes two to tango. You just cannot cry and fight and shout for Sabah rights. You will have to engage with the Federal Government.
You will have to sit down with the Federal Government ... between the State Government and the Federal Government we have to sit down rationally, unemotionally and talk it out, what actually are our Sabah rights, what actually are our entitlements under the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) or under the Federal Constitution.
So when we ... if we do have the opportunity to run the State Government. I will invite eminent retired judges from Sabah. We have quite alot of eminent retired judges here.
I will invite them to form a special team and I will make sure that they will get to Kuala Lumpur and engage and discuss with Kuala Lumpur what actually our entitlements are.
Sit down with Kuala Lumpur instead of shouting in Sabah, instead of shouting against Federal Government.
We have to be matured and we have to sit down as two entity, one State Government of Sabah and the other Federal Government of Malaysia and to talk about it, where is our entitlement, why are we not getting it. This is the way to go. This is the way to make sure that we get what we should have, what we deserve ... not only what we deserve, what actually are our rights, what actually are our entitlements especially under the Federal Constitution in terms of money, revenue coming back to us, that is most important.
Q: Would your party consider an alliance with Warisan-Plus or other stand-alone parties to form the Government?
A: We will consider if we don’t have the majority. If we have the majority we will run the State Government ourselves. But if we dont have the majority we will form ... we will work with any party that share our principles that share our agenda.
We will not form ... we will not cooperate with any that has got vested interest.
Very basic agenda we have, how to turn Sabah back to what it should be economically so that the youth today will have jobs in Sabah. How to clean up Sabah of all the Pendatang Tanpa Izin (illegal immigrants).
Whatever party that needs our cooperation to form the government they will have to agree to our principle expectation and one of the further expectation would be fairness to all Sabahans.
There has to be no more bias of one race or another. And that is very basic.
Q: What are the three priority issues that you will tackle if your party is elected to power?
A: The first priority would be to clean up Sabah, to make Sabah safe, in other words security. My first agenda will be security.
How to make Sabah safe in terms of security? We have to get rid of all the Pendatang Tanpa Izin, there are no two ways about it.
Second priority, only once we make Sabah safe, a safe place for all Sabahans, a safe place for all Malaysians then we can tell the whole world please come to Sabah and help us develop on a gain-gain condition, only then foreign investors will come in if we provide a safe environment.
So the second agenda will be to ensure that the economy of Sabah gets up and fly because we need to have vibrant economy and to have vibrant economy then we will have not only stopping our youths from going away, we will have people coming here to invest to work and then there will be the multiplier effect for the whole country and this vibrant economy will be spearheaded by the tourism industry.
Tourism industry today is accepted as a driver of the whole world, so tourism itself will be our driving sort of a vehicle to make Sabah back to what it should be.
The second one will be economy, how to turn it back.
The third one will be equality for all. I think we have for too long already, having all this imbalance, equality for all meaning the urban and the rural.
I just came back from Tandek and Bandau. I can see for myself and I feel so bad the people there are still so poor. The basic infrastructure are zero.
I have been to the remote kampungs in Inanam where I am standing and I still feel so bad because even until today we don’t have even pipe water getting to all these kampungs and the roads are so bad.
Why the road are so bad in Inanam, in all the kampungs?
Because there is zero drainage, even the parit are non-existent, how do you build up and repair all the road every time when there is heavy downpour the road becomes damaged again just because the saluran tidak ada, the parit, the longkang, and all this are just non-existent.
So there must be equality of development.
My third priority will be to ensure that all my luar bandar are given focus, given equal if not top priority with the urban centre so that they will be balance for all Sabahans in Sabah.
Additional questions:
Q: Who is funding you because there have been rumours that RM40 million has been channelled to you by PM Tan Sri Muhyiddin and there is another rumour that you are being funded by ex-PM Tun Dr Mahathir.
A: These rumours especially that we are being funded by Tan Sri Muhyiddin to the tune of RM40 million actually is a very vicious rumours.
Very immoral whoever initiated, whoever created these rumours must be very vicious for some unknown reason why they are so vicious to LDP and to me we cannot comprehend but they will have to live with their conscience.
Whoever created these rumours that LDP is funded by Tan Sri Muhyiddin to the tune of RM40 million have to live with their conscience for telling big lies to the people in Sabah.
They really will have to live with this in their heart and they will have to face the Creator above for telling very vicious lies. There is absolutely no such thing.
Tan Sri Muhyiddin will have no time to fund LDP. Tan Sri Muhyiddin is too preoccupied with his Perikatan component parties especially those fighting us in Sabah, contesting in Sabah. It is out of the creators mind to bring in Tan Sri Muhyiddin and try to link Tan Sri Muhyiddin to LDP when Tan Sri Muhyiddin has so many of his component parties contesting in Sabah. It doesn’t make sense.
How could Tan Sri Muhyiddin give us RM40 million?
But to me, whoever spread these rumours must be a very vicious person and it will not be good for them, karma will go after them.
I cannot do anything, I can only tell Sabahan that this is actually a vicious rumour.
Likewise, the rumour that I am being funded or supported by Tun Mahathir.
I think that will make Datuk Shafie very angry because Datuk Shafie is the one championing Tun Mahathir today.
He is the one hugging Tun Mahathir today, how can Tun Mahathir come and support me? Must be crazy isn’t it?
Those who create rumours, please lah create more credible rumours, something that people may believe. But how do you say Tun Mahathir is with Chong Kah Kiat...supporting Chong Kah Kiat? Datuk Shafie will be very angry.
"Chong: Some kampungs have no piped water"
Q: Are you willing to work with the Federal?
A: I have said that in my first party press conference on Sept 3, and it is in my speech.
Actually, the very first point I said that whoever runs the Federal Government, whether it is Tan Sri Muhyiddin or even Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim or whoever, they must be appointed, endorsed by His Majesty the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.
Once His Majesty appointed them, whoever they are, LDP Government in Sabah, LDP will obviously respect and work with them and we will engage with them the Federal Government.
We will never fight like what Warisan is now fighting against the Perikatan Nasional Government.
We are not going to do that. We will work with any government in the Federal so long as they are appointed by the Agong and we do that for what?
Not for us, it’s for the people of Sabah. We just want to make sure that the Federal and the State work as one so that we develop the whole country including develop Sabah well without any animosity, without any obstacles.
I remember way back in the mid-1980s when PBS State Government was fighting against the Federal Government for almost 10 years we got nothing, we got no development.
You can cry and shout where is our entitlement, you can shout, but the Federal Government will just not give their attention to the State.
So it will be silly and very irresponsible for any leader to fight the Federal Government.
If it is for their own interest well and good they can continue but who suffer?
The people in Sabah will suffer.
The point here is the Federal Government must be and obviously has to be appointed the Prime Minister by His Majesty by the Agong, you cannot have a Federal Government that is not legal.
Muhyiddin is appointed by His Majesty the Agong and one day if other leaders in Malaysia including Shafie Apdal becomes the Prime Minister ... he got the support of the majority of the 222 parliamentarians obviously then the Agong will appoint him, isn’t it?
So long as the Agong appoints the person and that person forms the Federal Government we will work with them there is no two way about it.
