WRONG TRACK HELPING STRANDED SABAHANS

THERE is little hope that urgent and effective assistance will reach the Sabahans stranded in Peninsula Malaysia because the government is on the wrong track. When the issue was first highlighted by a local newspaper, State ministers had denied the existence of the problem, and then when confronted with evidence, said the numbers were small, like only 20. Incoherent voices have since been heard from state ministers and their assistants.

The latest example of being off track is the appeal by the State Minister of Community Development who called on district chiefs, native chiefs, village chiefs and kapitans to be on the look out for employment agents in their areas.

She thinks employment agents are like illegal immigrants who roam the country side. In case our ministers have not noticed, advertisements for Sabah job seekers to work in the peninsula can be found in newspapers and occasionally banners, like those of private colleges.

Now that our young Sabahans have friends and relatives already in the peninsula, many of Sabah’s school leavers simply pack their bags and join their relatives and friends in KL in search of a better life. Get off an Air Asia flight at KL’s low cost carrier terminal, and you will come across young Sabahans being received by employment agents in KL or their friends who are already working there.

To see for themselves, our Ministers and assistant ministers can try the Air Asia flights to Kuala Lumpur, Penang or Johore. Some of these young Sabahans will succeed. Others will be disappointed. Some will fall prey to crime syndicates, human traffickers and all sorts of problems.

Unless the State Government shows more seriousness and leadership in solving this disgraceful problem, our young people who are stranded in KL will have to fend for themselves.

The Sabahans living in the peninsula today are no longer like in the 1970s to 1990s when most of them were Sabah Foundation-sponsored students and private students or state government officials whose welfare was looked after by the offices of Sabah Foundation and the Sabah Liaison Unit.

Today’s population of Sabahans in KL is estimated at more than a hundred thousand. The most vulnerable are the school leavers and job seekers. Poorly equipped, once they are jobless and without cash, they become stranded. This is when they are most vulnerable to be drawn into a life of crime, to live off charity or to beg in the streets of KL.

This is not merely a State or a Federal matter. This is a Sabah issue. Our leaders at both the state and federal levels can and should use the immense government resources at their disposal to help these young people.

Get them jobs, place them in training centres or bring them home. Even if the success rate cannot be 100 percent, as many as possible of these young Sabahans should be helped to give them a new path in life.

By: YONG TECK LEE (sabahkini)