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Recreational facilities is such a part of the various local councils managing their public facilities under their jurisdictions. I noticed that these facilities are managed by proper managers.

For example, I brought my grand-daughter who lives in Sydney to this leisure facility for her swimming lessons. I am impressed by the pools available for different ages (including senior citizens) but even more impressive is the orderly manner these facilities are managed. Clean and tidy with great care being taken on safety aspect. It is when I see these types of facilities that I wish our councils are able to up-grade some of our facilities in order to provide services which all of us as residents can truly feel proud of.

Yes, it will take time but as our citizens staying in the bigger cities and towns are now more discerning, we need to cater for their needs as well. These urban dwellers are often well travelled or well read, so their wants and needs should be addressed as well.

I supposed we need to provide a variety of facilities to cater for different needs of our populations, whether urban or rural. To be fair, big cities such as Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya, such types of leisure facilities are already there but we need to do more.

Cities like Kuching, Miri and Sibu in Sarawak need to catch up to keep their populations reasonably happy with the administrations/authorities.

Should we leave it just like that? Que sera sera?

My sincere appreciation and gratitude to MPOC for awarding the 2010 PILA award which I received from Tan Sri Bernard Giluk Dompok, Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities last night. I will treasure this and it is a thrilling sensation to continue to be part of the palm oil fraternity and contribute in some small way to its success.

photo courtesy of Berita Harian

I feel honoured as this appreciation is in recognition of my contributions during my tenure as the Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities (2004-2009). In fact, I have benefited for having  the full cooperation of all stakeholders in the palm oil fraternity to steer the industry to greater heights. Many transformation programmes have resulted in marked improvements in sustainability of the palm oil industry to meet the intense challenges and demands of the global oil and fats market.

Giving bright students JBA scholarships for further studies either local or foreign institutions of higher learning is a very good decision and I do hope everyone will support this effort by the government. To achieve straight 9A+ is more than proof that the particular student is bright and he is really the creme de la creme of our young talents. Questions have often been directed at me as to why a student having achieved good results and not being given a JPA scholarship. I believe with this decision, such a question will not arise in the future. Our Prime Minister should be congratulated for being so “open-minded” in solving this issue.

In the 7th June edition of the Star newspaper, its reporter in Miri,  Stephen Then, had chosen to write a piece “Chin flays ‘ungrateful’ folk” about my attendance of a Gawai function on 5th June organised at the Senior Citizens’ Center in Miri. I made an ‘off-the-cuff’  speech in Bahasa that night about facilities provided by the government for the use and enjoyment of the ordinary people and in doing so spent large amounts of fund. What I had observed was that the building and facilities at the Center was well-looked after by the Committee and I compared it to others which became shabby within a short space of time. So I congratulated the management and committee. I took the opportunity to stress that the government had spent hundreds of millions over the years to provide such and other types of facilities as well as basic infrastructures for the benefit of our peoples whether they lived in the urban towns and cities or in the rural kampongs. Yet there were those who would oppose the government on whatever it did as these people were being influenced by the opposition parties which ’spin stories’ on these projects and programs so as to gain political mileage.  I had never mentioned the word “ungrateful” in reference to people who do not support the government; much less representing my party, SUPP, in labelling anyone or group as being “ungrateful”. It was a Gawai celebrations, no doubt; but I did not drink so much tuak (the local brew which was served generously)  that I was stupid enough to commit the elementary mistake of a politician by labeling constituents as “ungrateful” people. Just for the sake of clarifying the language and words used by me, I did say “ada yang tidak menghargai kemudahan-kemudahan yang dibina oleh pihak kerajaan”. I do think there is a lot of difference between “do not appreciate” and being “ungrateful”. I certainly could not have meant the latter connotation in relation to the general drift of my speech that night. And I do hope Stephen will help to clarify the reporting.

Last Sunday (16th May), voters in the Bandar Sibu Parliament Constituency P.212 decided with a slim majority of 398 votes that until the next general elections,  the Member of Parliament will be YB Wong Ho Lian of DAP thereby reversing the trend of voting for a SUPP MP over the last 28 years.  SUPP President had said that the Party respected the peoples’ verdict (even though I know the loss is painful especially on account of the slim majority). If another 200 or so voters had voted for the BN/SUPP candidate, Mr. Robert Lau Hui Yew, he would have been the winner instead. As it turned out, Robert’s tally of votes was just not enough to beat the DAP candidate. Regretfully, what I had written on this matter in this blog did not turned out to be correct. SUPP had promised a post mortem on the whole episode and already there had been many interpretations as to why the voting trend of the majority of the Chinese voters in Sibu turned out to be anti BN. I have my own interpretations, of course; but I will like to see what the post mortem will review later on. Suffice for me to say that there has to be very compelling reasons for the Chinese voters to overwhelmingly voted against SUPP/BN and it looked like the Chinese voters in Sibu followed the trend set by Kuching voters in the 2006 State elections and the 2008 Parliament elections. It is the intention of  SUPP to win back the confidence of the Chinese voters in Sibu, Kuching and elsewhere in Sarawak.