March 2, 2011
COMMENT Upon reaching Kerdau, one gets the feeling that UMNO and BN ought to feel ashamed and embarrassed.
KERDAU 2011 ... Dusty roads symbolising how the town missed the development radar for the past 53 years
After all, how could a small town with 4,000 odd UMNO members be left in a miserable condition for 53 years?
Despite the heavy presence of Barisan Nasional politicians and the accompanying goodies, many residents have resigned to the fate that Kerdau would remain the same as it has been for the last half-a-century after every general election and by-election.
“Nothing will change. The leaders here were arrogant, but now they come bearing so many goodies provided we stick a Barisan Nasional logo in front of our houses,” a Chinese rubber tapper told me.
Like him, most people in Kerdau worked as rubber tappers. But luck has never been on their side despite the high price of rubber as production was affected due to the raining season earlier in the year, which affected rubber trees.
Life was generally easy-going, and here, one finds no opportunity for Kerdau's second generation and beyond. Most from the younger generation traveled far away in search of better jobs.
“No one wants to work as a rubber tapper,” said a 53-year old resident, who has five children.
On the other hand, there are a lot of rumblings that this constituency have not been well serviced despite the many promises made come every election since 1990.
Some parts of Kerdau look like remote areas of Sarawak, without clean water supply, such as Kampung Orang Asli Paya Sendayan.
PAS leaders touring Kerdau's abandoned low-cost housing projects, abandoned for more than two decades
As usual, UMNO and BN's temporary remedy is by providing water supply once every three days, in a desperate attempt to secure votes from these impoverished folks.
It also promised an allocation of RM9.25 million to upgrade a water treatment plant in Batu Sawar.
Besides promising the water treatment plant, Prime Minister Najib Razak announced a project to build a multipurpose hall for the Chinese community in Kampung Sri Kerdau, costing some RM400,000, a temple for the Hindus (RM100,000) and a volunteer Fire Station (RM150,000), bringing the total to almost RM10 million within just a day's visit.
The question is, however, is whether the Pahang state government led by Adnan Yaakob has the money to carry out these projects.
According to the Pahang state budget for 2011, out of an allocation of RM870,117,390 million, Adnan had only spent a mere RM270,693,250, equivalent to 31 percent, for state development, the rest going for 'operational costs'.
With 42 state constituencies in the largest state in Peninsula Malaysia, a constituency will receive an average of RM6.43 million this year.
Burdened by a debt of RM2.17 billion, one is tempted to know where the astronomical funding for Kerdau is coming from, and which constituency is being victimised of development fund in 2011?
If the government chooses to argue that the funds for Kerdau is from Federal coffers, how is such a high allocation can be justified and what about other constituencies that do not have a by-election?
Pahang’s problem is not new, and it is apparent that the BN state assemblymen are not doing their job in reprimanding Adnan's administration for his economic folly. The opposition, meanwhile, is only represented by 4 seats in the state assembly.
Like it or not, Kerdau voters are aware that once this by-election is over, things will be back to 'normal', just like how it normalised after each of the 12 elections.
Yet, the fact is that the timing of this election works best for them, because the next general election is looming, perhaps less than a year from now. As such, the BN will be dishing out promises again soon.
So it would not be a bad idea to use their vote to jolt the BN by voting the opposition to represent them just for several months. How much can a consitutency lose in one year?
Mind you, the RM6.45 million for a state constituency is only the average. By right, if one goes by the ratio of constituency's area in the Pahang state that has a total area of 3.6 million hectares, Kerdau (13,214 hectares) only deserves to receive RM993,632.00 or 0.36 percent out of the total RM270 million allocated from the state budget this year.
This means that what Najib promised in one day would be almost equivalent to what Kerdau would receive in 10 years from the state government, if there were no by-election.
Either Kerdau voters use this opportunity to give BN a wake-up call, or they could just hope for something to happen to their newly elected ADUN.
http://en.harakahdaily.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2378:kerdau-waiting-for-a-wake-up-call-after-53-years&catid=34:primary&Itemid=56
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