KUCHING: Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) deputy publicity chief Christopher Gira Sambang has expressed disappointment over Parti Sarawak Bersatu (PSB) members ‘misinforming the public’ with twisted facts with regard to the proposed Second Trunk Road (STR).
“We are all aware that some of the YBs (elected representatives) or ex-YBs from PSB were part of the state and federal governments as assemblymen or MPs before,” he said in a statement today.
He said that while serving as a representative of the people especially as a ruling government, the responsibility was to bring development, especially to their own constituencies in rural areas.
“Sadly, these YBs did not do their job when they had the opportunity,” he said.
According to him, the Pan Borneo Highway and STR would leapfrog Sarawak’s development landscape in the next ten years.
He said that the Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) government under the leadership of Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg was targeting to make Sarawak a developed state by 2030. Therefore, the state needed to have good strategies and planning by providing good infrastructure, electricity, water supply, digital economy, and so on.
“It is always the Sarawak government’s policy to bring more development to rural areas in the process of narrowing the development gap between urban and rural.
“Once development is put in order, this will attract local and foreign investors into the state, opening up job and business opportunities to Sarawakians and also to increase state revenue,” he said.
Gira, who is also Tamin assemblyman, said STR was to serve about 60 per cent of the total population in Sarawak, especially those residing within the Simunjan, Lingga, Sri Aman, Betong, Maludam, Roban areas.
He said that once the proposed STR was completed, travel time between each town in Sarawak would be shortened.
Besides that, he said the road connectivity would unlock the economic potential of land in stages, such as land with immediate development, land with medium development, land with long term development, and land for future development.
He said that the road would also accelerate the supply of electricity, treated water, digital economy, and other developments to certain areas.
“Since elected as state assemblyman for Tamin in 2016, I have attended all the proposed yearly budgets tabled in the State Legislative Assembly (DUN),” Gira said.
He noted that every year about 60 to 75 per cent from the total budget was allocated for development in rural areas — especially for the construction of roads and bridges, treated water supply and electricity supply.
