Kota Kinabalu: Former Sabah Bersatu Secretary, Abdul Kadir Abdullah Damsal (pic), has officially resigned from the party and decided to return to Umno.
His resignation follows his quitting the position of the party’s state secretary last year without citing any reason.
In his statement, Abdul Kadir revealed his decision to rejoin Umno, a party he had been a member of since October 1994, was motivated by the statement of Sabah Umno Treasurer and Election Director, Datuk Seri Salleh Tun Said, who had urged former party members to make a comeback and support the party in the coming state election to ensure that Umno would become a dominant political force again.
Abdul Kadir said the other reason that inspired him to return was his belief that Umno has a proven track record in governance.
“By this, I mean that Umno, both at Federal and State level, has the extensive experience in government and its substantial performance over the years speaks for itself.
“At state level, where Umno made its presence over 30 years has seen the tremendous physical achievement and development especially the last 14 years, particularly under the leadership of Tun Musa as the Chief Minister then.
“The other factor is the sustainability. And this is the tipping point for me to seriously consider rejoining the party,” he said.
Having been with the State Government for most part of his career of which he was the CEO of three different GLCs (Innoprise Corporation Sdn Bhd, Beras Corporation Sdn Bhd and Sabah Oil & Gas Development Corporation), Abdul Kadir said he understands the importance of political stability in ensuring that Sabah would see real economic development and progress that benefit the people.
“It was only under Umno-BN State Government that Sabahans saw the political stability and the progress made in its stride,” he said.
He pointed out that the establishment of Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS), Kota Kinabalu Industrial Park (KKIP), the modernisation of Kota Kinabalu International Airport (KKIA), the expansion of QE1 Hospital and the establishment of Sabah Medical Centre were among the key strategic development initiatives implemented by the Umno-BN led State Government.
“This trend of physical development takes a steroid-type pace of development when Musa took over as Chief Minister in 2003 and incidentally coinciding with the decision by the Prime Minister then to cease the rotation of Chief Minister post.
“Amongst his most distinctive achievements during his tenure as Chief Minister were the construction of the majestic Menara Kinabalu, the popular SICC and the establishment of Sedia to coordinate the federal and state economic incentives.
”He also championed education by establishing the first of five MRSM in 2002 and subsequently the other during his time as Chief Minister,” he said, adding that the establishment of University College of Sabah Foundation (UCSF) also took place during BN’s time in 2015.
He pointed out that it was also during Musa’s BN leadership that Sabah saw the massive onshore investment of Petronas totalling about RM50 billion which created economic spill over in terms of job creation and business opportunities for local Sabahan companies in the oil, gas and energy sector.
”Sipitang Oil & Gas Industrial Park was created to cater for the construction of multi-billion-dollar Petronas Ammonia-Urea Plant (Samur). This was made possible with the laying of gas pipeline Sabah-Sarawak Gas Pipeline (SSGP) distributing gas from Sabah Oil & Gas Terminal Kimanis (SOGT). With the availability of natural gas onshore, the shortage of power supplies was made good by the Kimanis Power Plant that generated additional 300MW to the state power grid,” Abdul Kadir added.
On the economic front, he said, unemployment was only hovering between 4.7-5.7pc as compared to more than 7pc for the past five years, while development gap between other states in Malaysia had been narrowing as Sabah’s GDP was the highest in Malaysia by 2017 at 8.1pc.
Over the past five years GDP growth in Sabah had been in averaging at less than 3pc.
“All these are undisputable facts. “For this, I believe Umno has what it takes to replicate these successes and certainly do better and with greater impact for Sabah and the people,” said Abdul Kadir.
