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During every election fever, many issues and concerns have been raised and many have attracted the attention of the public and also the soon to be potential wakil rakyat.
In this current episode, I would like to raise the plight of the people in Sarikei, Sarawak, especially the danger that they are going through everyday when they traveled from Sarikei to Bintango, a mere 5 kilometers away from each other. After so many years of independence and long since we are pursuing knowledge based economy, we could see many skyscrapers everyway in Kuala Lumpur, Johore Baru, Penang and the facilities there made us proud that we are Malaysian. However, the small town of Sarikei, although the economy is fast picking up, the facilities are outright traditional and pose high danger to the local inhabitants. The commute between two small towns which are separated by Rejang River, has to depend on ferries. The distance between the banks is only 100 meters and everyday, hundred if not thousand, of cars have to depend on this two ferries to float them across the river. We wonder how could this have happened especially so much money has been spent to build skyscrapers, multi million dollars dam in Bakun, and do not forget that Sarawak is timber and oil producer in Malaysia. The photos below paint a clearer picture of the plight of the people here. Many have said that in the course of development, some corners in a country would be neglected especially when the development allocation is not enough to bring advancement everyway simultaneously. However, obviously the plight of these people is not yesterday’s story, they have been using the ferries to commute for years already. The people from both side of the town, Sarikei and Bintango, compromise their lives while commuting to work, shopping everyday. This is because of the flow of the river and also the possible collision between the two ferries in view of the proximity of these two ferries when operating together at the same time. And since the operation of the ferry is handled by private, not to mention the cost of RM1 each time to cross and use the service, the condition of the ferry is outright fragile. One can see from the photos that the structure of the ferry and the docking process pose great danger to the passengers on board. If so short a distance between the two banks cannot be bridged, how could the Government claims that we are industrializing and achieving development? The Sarikei town is populated by not hundred of people, but hundred of thousand of people. It consists of Ibans, Malays and also Chinese. The economic development is similar to the pace of those in Prai, Negeri Sembilan, and other small towns in Malaysia. So many years have passed and so many promises have been made to build a bridge, but after election, the promises were just dried up and again and again not fulfilled. We wonder how could so much money earned and spent on big projects, double track rail, monorail, KLCC twin tower, and so on, a few hundred thousand ringgits to spend to build the bridge of only 100 meters is not allocated? Is the present Government only concern about the big cities, and neglected the small towns like sarikei? How about the promises they made to us in every election? And about the vote that people in Sarikei cast which they are promised of RM50 to vote for current government? MoneyPolitics 
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