No electricity, but old folk get laptops
Barisan Nasional’s ‘wild spending’ is worrying opposition leaders in Sarawak.
(Free Malaysia Today) – KUCHING: What’s the idea of giving away 1Malaysia laptops to the illiterate elderly in rural Sarawak where more than 500,000 people have no electricity, let alone broadband?
Mocking Barisan Nasional’s laptop giveaways in the rural interior, PKR state chief Baru Bian said: “Half a million people in this state do not have access to electricity, let alone broadband. Where is the accountability of those who are entrusted with the distribution of the laptops?
“To prove the point that the distribution has nothing to do with needs but everything to do with trying to bribe the rakyat, I need only to quote a minister who said ‘distribution [of the laptops] to families was based on the population in each parliamentary constituency’.
“Why categorise the recipients so blatantly according to their parliamentary constituencies?.
“Distribution should logically be based on the need and affordability of the laptops for the population as a whole, and especially those in the lower income groups, ” he said, adding that the giveaways was yet another example of vote-buying and a “shocking waste of the rakyat’s money”.
Bian, who is the Ba’Kelalan assemblyman, said the opposition parties were concerned about BN’s “wild spending”.
“It is a major concern for the opposition parties that the BN government’s wild spending of the rakyat’s money will have serious repercussions on the economy, which we will be left to deal with when we take over the government of this country,” he said.
No guidelines to distribution
Bian said he was told that the distribution of the free laptops is being carried out without proper guidelines and with no thought as to who will derive real benefit from receiving the laptops.
Although Bian did not reveal names, it is understood that the suppliers who have connections to Umno are the ones who will benefit.
