Have another RCI to review RCI IIS

Have another RCI to review RCI IIS

I have written three editions of EPIC of Sabah where EPIC means Extra People Identity Cards in 2002, 2004, 2005 with great fervent concern that solution could be found with a brief booklet titled “Introduction to TSUNAMI  of illegals & illegalities in Sabah” in 2007.

Today, after an almost two decades, everything this “tsunami” has very ugly manifestations and it seems to be endless in our midst despite the first ever Royal Commission Inquiry (RCI) held in 2012/2013 after calling for it in decades earlier. So how is the RCI on illegal Immigration Sabah (RCI IIS) treating us in Sabah and the nation.

Our expectation of RCI IIS is deeply hurt and much disappointment after 5 years thereof.

Are we not in deep trouble when we read such recent headlines amongst many like “Woman fined RM25,000 for allowing five illegals in her premises (February 3, 2018), Korean restaurateur fined RM15,000 for hiring illegal (February 3, 2018)? There is another frightening fairly detailed article in New Strait Times titled “[Exclusive] Terrorists get fake IDs for RM350” (February 12, 2018) where we face HORROR in tsunami of illegals and illegalities.

Now everything about this tsunami and its impact appears miserably a gone case for the nation without any solution in sight with the present Government.

Yet recently, in several news items, we have “mixed marriage kids face citizenship woes” (DE 31/1/2018), “Families’ citizenship nightmare over” (DE 21/2/2018), and an official letter from the office of the Sabah Speaker dated 23February, 2018 addressed to the DPM cum Home Minister over PTI for documentation. In the other two news items in this paragraph, references were also made to the DPM cum HM.

Have we discarded the Constitution as far as citizenship is concerned when Home Minister is now pursued over illegals and illegalities to regularise what RCI IIS has failed to address?  There was also a speculation and allegation that HM has been dealing with PTIs from Bangladesh.  Is that true? So where are we heading to?

The other impact of this tsunami is that Kadazan Dusun Murut (KDM) once since 1960 were in substantial majority in Sabah but now the demographic trend since Project IC as denied in RCI IIS has reduced/diluted their status so much so KDM are now grabbing with 22 State seats out of 60/ or 73 (2018) as per news item “22-strong KDM power bloc mooted” (DE 21/2/2018). So the local natives are now  overrun  or “ethnic cleansed” to face a very bleak future or little bargaining power for the welfare of the genuine local people unless a reversal process is judiciously carried out in accordance to RCI IIS .

Given the adverse impasse of the RCI IIS, can we have another RCI to review what had been the set back of RCI IIS just before the GE13 ? The ‘edited’ Report of RCI IIS was delayed released on 3 Dec 2014). We need to resolve this tsunami no matter how .

Joshua Y C Kong 1/3/2018

Mobilepreneur@KKLW programme can be expensive failure

Mobilepreneur@KKLW  programme can be expensive failure

It maybe very exciting for some people that something is positively done for the young people or youth in Sabah as the Ministry of Rural and Regional Development (KKLW) has allocated 291 motorcycles for young entrepreneurs in Sabah for its Mobile Entrepreneur Programme (Mobilepreneur@KKLW) under Budget 2017 as per news on February 14, 2018.

Its minister, Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri bin Yaakob, said 155 units of the motorcycle was provided through Giatmara while the remaining 136 units by Felcra Training and Consultancy.

The Mobilepreneur@KKLW programme is an initiative to assist young people from rural areas to start their own business with minimal capital without having to set up or rent a business premises.

Ismail Sabri said Mobilepreneur@KKLW began in 2016 when the Rural Transformation Programme was launched.

The Sabah sector was launched by the Chief Minister of Sabah in the presence of the Minister Ismail Sabri in Kota Kinabalu.

The news further added that Ismail Sabri said the cost of assisting these young entrepreneurs were RM10,000 per person, which included RM5,000 for the motorcycle, RM4,000 for equipment and RM1,000 for training.

He added that the recipients would be monitored for six months where they would undergo training in financial and administrative management to ensure their business run smoothly.

He said the recipients provided services such as electrical, automotive and air-conditioning repairs, tailoring or beauty services.

We are not told if these selected youth were already successful in the said businesses as identified.

I only wish that these youths would have greater success stories to tell soon in their respective fields especially in the rural area.

I am wondering why they are only provided with motor cycles and not some pickup trucks although we have some very bad patches of rural roads in the hinterland of Sabah but not so bad in most rural towns.  

Some of such services would require to bring some ladders along to perform their services.  How would motor cycles do that without endangering the youth? Maybe there are now collapsible reliable heavy duty ladders? Some of such services also require helper/ assistant. Hence additional costs of operation would be needed at the start.

Without proper equipping, how would paying customers be well serviced?

Also I wish the youth well in their performance without mentoring of senior skilled masters. 

I am also wondering how would such youthful entrepreneurs be generating adequate business from day 1 they go out to the rural areas ?  There appears to be no allocation of mobilisation funds to implement their projects with some fixed or varying overheads like fuels and other travel expenditure?

I also hope there is no overlooked scenario in their effort to achieve entrepreneurship that there can be unsuspecting or unexpected setbacks like what I was told when I was with the Consumers Association of Sabah or better known as CASH as deputy president for a few years.

I had received verbal reports that some technicians/mechanics also a self employed in the motor trades in Kota Kinabalu that some of them could strip part of the cars engines (maybe new to them) and unable to fit them back after socalled “repair”.  There was no mentor to come to their aid in such situations and someone else had to fix it later. What would happen in a rural setting if such things do happen?  Would the consumers be badly short changed ?

Another regular situation is that some technicians in well dressed in certain company’s working uniform would come to some homes in Kota Kinabalu to claim that they can check the home gas facilities for FOC.  If the homes allow them to come in in good faith, they may come in to strip the gas equipment and leave them stripped.  Then such “persons” would demand a fee to return them to the original condition. Would the home owners oblige without complaint in situ?

Life cannot be all rosy and a few “rotten” apples can spoil the system no matter how good was the intention to start with.  Can this happen to Mobilepreneur@KKLW  programme?

No haste in view of General Elections 2018/ GE14?   Hopefully not another “scam” in the pipeline for such national expenditure?

Any failure for whatever reasons would be good lessons for all to learn (not first and last time) but we would be in better ground to be prepared with suitable back up or support services to avoid any disaster for Mobilepreneur@KKLW  programme as it is too expensive to fail. 

Joshua Y C Kong 21/2/2018

Some good uses of smokes

Some good uses of smokes

TNB Energy Services Sdn Bhd General Managerbro (Business Development), Mohamed Azrin Mohamed Ali says “the energy that runs Electric Vehicles were clean fuel” and he went on to say “imagine we expose our children with toxic hazardous smoke daily (when we use our fossil fuel run vehicles). We don’t realise until we use EV. It is a very good proposition to the public,” at the Sustainable Energy Convention 2018 last week in Kota Kinabalu.

Smokes or no smokes is a reality in our daily life whether we like it or not and it is everywhere especially we have tens of thousands of indispensable vehicles on our roads.

Also there are plenty smokers of traditional cigarettes and now electronic cigarettes with vaping of plenty of all sorts of smokes depending on the ingredients thereof.

Lets us move away from the negative aspects of any smokes of any colours be it white, yellow, green, blue, brown or black or simply transparent very dependent on the materials that are burnt. We all hold the belief that any smoke is likely bad but hold on there are instances where smokes can benefit us in the environment.

Have we not tasted how smokes can do with our daily food intakes?

We have the smoked food like the famous smoked salmon and other fishes.  Near home we regularly have satay and barbecue with smoke element in such food consumed.  We enjoy them very much without knowing the smoke attached rather than the element of fire and heat.  We do that in the open and the excess smoke do enter the atmosphere.  Can we do it any other ways and yet derived the said results?  Smoked salmon are done inside an oven/ container but the smoke does exit into the atmosphere or environment and we don’t mind that in terms of climate change for such practices.

Our prayers to God are expected to be smoke of incense to God for answers.  The Bible does tell us something about smokes in the divine context.

Some people burn the Agarwood or gaharu for the smoke or incense to uplift their spirit in their homes. If that can be accepted, what would happen if we burn cocoa beans for healing impact when cocoa butter is used to clear up marks of wounds or surgical operation?

I hope more research is done in some areas of certain smokes to our well being while we know cigarette tar or nicotine is damaging to our health for smoking.

Even the Pope selection or election come with white and black smokes in Vatican.

Science has advocated for the fogging of mosquitoes in our midst. But how effective can that be is yet to be verified.  What we know is that more chemicals are sprayed into the atmosphere.  Such chemicals can also harm human being if we happen to work outdoor.  I was once exposed to such fogging in the outdoor and next morning I experienced constipation.  So I believe a much less costly and less harmful applications of natural ingredients and their smokes can do a better job to flush out the mosquitoes in our compound or environment.

Now we can see another effective approach of vegetational smoke in the application of restoration of mango trees of wormed fruits.  I knew this application in my childhood in Labuan and knew it was effective to cure such trees.

There was a case of my brother in law’s mango tree with wormed fruit and he wanted to cut it down a few decades ago. There and then I told him to “fumigate” his tree with regular bon fires of vegetational material without chemicals.  Today the same tree is still standing and bearing fruit seasonally without the worms.  So my advice to owners of such wormed trees try this method rather than just cut down an old tree that take so long to mature and fruiting.

Some people may recommend spraying of chemicals but how costly can that be and ineffective too because the trees are so big?  So the obvious choice would be still cutting them and what a total loss to the environment?

I am told good mango trees can be destroyed with the wormed fruits if tenants of the houses with the mango trees consume the raw fruit with belacan or prawn paste (simply  delicious dish) and that maybe so but the solution is still the regular smokes of small bon fire. The worms would not be there in raw fruits but would grow up with ripening fruits.  Would consuming such raw fruits already impregnated/contaminated with invisible worms at that stage in usually not fully cooked dished or semi raw do any  harm healthwise?

I have moved to my present house 4 years ago and there is a sour-type mango tree next door that bore wormed fruit when ripe. Then I smoked the tree the usual way and fruits in thousands have improved and taste so good when ripe. So no need to cut it down and irreplaceable for that size.  Even in a wormed tree, there would be the odd ones without worms when ripe.

There are still many such wormed trees in my neighbourhood I would urge them to smoke them regularly as an option rather than cut them down also losing the fruits and shade that come with the matured trees.

I hope readers would pass this important message around as I had witnessed quite a few mango trees cut.

So smokes are not all bad and more research are badly needed to explore the usefulness.

Joshua Y C Kong 30/1/18