Taking our hats off to Jong Yee Khie who won Malaysia's second medal in Tokyo Paralympic for powerlifting event

We take our hats off to Jong Yee Khie who won Malaysia's second medal at the Tokyo Paralympics after the 32-year-odl Sarawakian bagged the silver medal in the men's 107kg category at the Tokyo International Forum venue this morning.

Jong secured his best lift of 237kg in the second attempt which was second behind champion Sodnompiljee Enkhbayar of Mongolia who is also the reigning world champion. Sodnompiljee won the event after having lifted a new Paralympics record of 245kg, erasing the previous mark of 238kg set by Pavlos Mamalos of Greece in the Rio Paralympic in 2016.

But still, Jong's achievement in this year's Paralympic also marked a major milestone from his Games debut 5 years ago where he could only finished 7th position in the 97kg category.

This is another best news we got from the ongoing Tokyo Paralympic after our world class Para powerlifter, Bonnie Bunyau Gustin bagged Malaysia's first medal on 28 August and setting the new Paralympic's record of 228kg in the men's 72kg category. 

Wishing everyone happy Merdeka Day 2021 & celebrating it in modest ways

I am actually excited with this year's 31st August Merdeka Day celebration and in Sarawak, we are still celebrating it on a modest scale because of our love for Malaysia, our mother land. The celebratory mood is still there for our local folks because despite the political developments, we are still able to take that moments to recall and appreciate what our past leaders had done in making Malaysia an independent country.

Many of us would also look forward to spending the short holiday with their loved ones but let us remind ourselves to continue abide the SOP and to avoid Covid19 at all cost. Prevention is always better than cure and it is our responsibility to keep ourselves safe from harm including our family members as well. There is no two way about in achieving our common goal of going through these challenging times together.    

Our hats off to Bonnie Bunyau who won Malaysia's first gold in Tokyo's Paralympics!

I am very happy today. Finally Negaraku and Jalur Gemilang is heard and flying high in Tokyo, Japan. My congratulations to Bonnie Bunyau Gustin for achieving Malaysia's gold medal in this year's Paralympic and setting a new record. He has made all Malaysians and Sarawakians feeling proud...and a very good Hari Kebangsaan 2021 present for all of us!!

He did it again and as our world class powerlifter, Bonnie had lived up to his top billing in the men's 72kg competition today. The 22-year-old is well known to be the man to beat and he had delivered more than the gold medal but also a new Paralympic record with a new lift of 228kg! The gold medal is also our nation's powerlifting’s best achievement since 2008.

We are indeed proud of Bonnie's achievement because during the competition, he went on to lift 228kg (dead lift) to successfully break the Paralympics record by 1 kg previously held by Rasool Mohsin of Iran. Bonnie had also tried to break his world record of 230kg set just two months ago in Dubai's World Para Powerlifting Championship 2021 but missed out on the 231kg bonus attempt.

Nevertheless, he once again defeated his close rival, China's Hu Peng, who is also ranked second in the world behind Bonnie, & was expected to give the Malaysian team the strongest challenge but it was Egyptian Mahmoud Attiar who bagged the silver instead with 191kg while the bronze went to Micky Yule of Britain finished third with 182kg.

Congratulation to all of Sarawakian Federal Cabinet Ministers

Together we congratulate the seven Members of Parliament from Sarawak who had been included in the new Federal Cabi­net lineup which was announced by Prime Min­is­ter, Yang Amat Berhormat Datuk Seri Is­mail Sabri Yaakob yes­ter­day. They include Datuk Seri Fadil­lah Yu­sof who had been re­tained as one of four Se­nior Min­is­ters as well as the Min­is­ter of Works while Datuk Seri Hajah Nancy Shukri also re­tained her port­fo­lio as the Minister of Tourism, Arts and Cul­ture while Dato Sri Alexan­der Nanta Linggi was retained as Minister of Do­mes­tic Trade and Con­sumer Af­fairs. 

We congratulated Datuk Seri Wan Ju­naidi Tuanku Jaa­far who now has a new port­fo­lio as Min­is­ter in the Prime Min­is­ter’s Depart­ment (Par­lia­ment and Law) af­ter pre­vi­ously serv­ing as En­tre­pre­neur De­vel­op­ment and Co-op­er­a­tives Min­is­ter. There was a swap­ping of port­fo­lios for Datuk Henry Sum Agong and Datuk Hasbi Habi­bol­lah, who are now Trans­port Deputy Min­is­ter and Ru­ral De­vel­op­ment Deputy Min­is­ter re­spec­tively.

Kudos also to Datuk Aaron Ago Da­gang who is now the Deputy Health Min­is­ter; Datuk Han­i­fah Ha­jar Taib as Deputy Min­is­ter in the Prime Min­is­ter’s Depart­ment (Sabah and Sarawak Af­fairs); Datuk Ali Biju as Deputy En­ergy and Nat­u­ral Re­sources Min­is­ter; and Datuk Wil­lie Mon­gin as Deputy Minister of Plan­ta­tion In­dus­tries and Com­modi­ties.

We hope all of them will dis­charge their du­ties with full re­spon­si­bil­ity and in­tegrity while working together with the rest of the federal cabinet members in bringing Malaysia back to its glory.

Having the "International Bornean Frog Race 2021" on a virtual format this time round

 I had the pleasure of officiating the virtual launching of the popular "International Bornean Frog Race 2021" which this time round it is based a virtual format. It is an exciting annual event which had been in our Sarawak's tourism calendar  where we welcome participants who include ecotourists, conservationists, scientists, resource managers, students and many others.

The International Bornean Frog Race is organised annually by the  Institute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservation of Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) and is a community’s conservation movement that had received good support from governmental agencies because it attracts public attention to Sarawak and Malaysia’s rich biological diversity. The Race is organised by the

It is supported by the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture Sarawak, and in this version, the race will be taking place across Borneo with the main component of the race itself is basically a photographic competition. It is exciting because the competition is pitting all of the participants' creativity and resourcefulness in finding, photographing frogs and other amphibians, along forests and fields of any locations on Borneo. Apart from encouraging the participants to come over our national parks and other jungle areas of Sarawak, the organiser had also organised other activities comprising talks, workshop, exhibition, documentary screening and prize presentation ceremony.

The interesting issue of lobbying for Deputy Prime Minister post

It is an interesting issue but I had expressed the view on the calls by var­i­ous quar­ters in Sarawak for the deputy prime min­is­ter (DPM) post to be al­lo­cated to Sarawak should not be mis­in­ter­preted as lob­by­ing for such position.

I have mentioned this to our media friends fol­low­ing a re­port that apart from Parti Pribumi Ber­satu Malaysia (Ber­satu), Gabun­gan Parti Sarawak (GPS) was also said to be lob­by­ing for the DPM's post. We must remember the pre­rog­a­tive of who should be in the Fed­eral Cab­i­net and what min­istry or po­si­tion he or she would hold actually rests on the Prime Min­is­ter and Dato Seri Is­mail Sabri should not be pres­sured in mak­ing that de­ci­sion.

There should not be any lob­by­ing too. Some Sarawakians have given their opin­ions and thoughts in­clud­ing my­self that time is ripe for an MP from the Bor­neo states to be con­sid­ered as DPM. But please do not look at it as lob­by­ing. The prime min­is­ter has full say on who he wants to be in his Cab­i­net but if a Sarawakian hap­pened to be se­lected then that would please all Sarawakians and also Saba­hans. It is also showing our role and con­tri­bu­tion in Greater Malaysia is recog­nised with such appointment as a DPM.

Welcoming others to join our "Sarawak My Second Home (SSMM2H)" program

Recently we organised a press conference in Kuching on the lat­est changes to the en­try re­quire­ments for the fed­eral's Malaysia My Sec­ond Home (MM2H) pro­gram which had made our Sarawak’s version even more at­trac­tive. I have mentioned to our media friends that Sarawak's ver­sion of the pro­gram is called SMM2H and it will not be af­fected by MM2H’s new re­quire­ments and reg­u­la­tions which will take ef­fect in Oc­to­ber this year.

I be­lieve this will be to Sarawak's ad­van­tage because our fed­eral coun­ter­part had re­cently amended the guide­lines and re­quire­ments for ap­pli­cants as well as for those who want to re­new their visa. The fed­eral gov­ern­ment on August 11 had an­nounced that MM2H will re­sume on­line with stricter cri­te­ria, such as an in­crease of com­pul­sory fixed de­posits in lo­cal banks to RM1 mil­lion; off­shore monthly in­come of RM40,000; and a dec­la­ra­tion of RM1.5 mil­lion in liq­uid as­sets. There is also a re­quire­ment of a min­i­mum stay pe­riod of 90 cu­mu­la­tive days per year as well as five years pass plus five years on re­newal ba­sis.

I have mentioned that if it were not due to the Covid19 pan­demic, there will be an avalanche of ap­pli­ca­tions for our pro­gram which has a panel that will in­de­pen­dently de­lib­er­ate and de­cide on each ap­pli­ca­tion. I am also the chairman for the panel which meet ev­ery month including with agen­cies like the Sarawak Im­mi­gra­tion De­part­ment, Chief Min­is­ter’s De­part­ment, Sarawak State At­tor­ney-Gen­eral’s Of­fice, Royal Malaysia Po­lice, state Health De­part­ment and fed­eral Tourism, Arts and Cul­ture Min­istry. 

It is interesting to note that from 2007 to 2020, we had re­ceived a to­tal of 1,306 par­tic­i­pants for this pro­gram and our min­istry has en­hanced new reg­u­la­tions and re­quire­ments for S-MM2H which came into ef­fect on September 1 last year. Ap­pli­cants from the United King­dom (UK) made about 18.1 per cent of ap­pli­ca­tions, fol­lowed by China (17 per cent), Tai­wan (12.3 per cent), Indonesia (7.1 per cent) and Sin­ga­pore (7 per cent).

In 2019 itself, there were many ap­pli­ca­tions from Aus­tralia, Bangladesh (14), United King­dom (25), China (45), Indonesia (17), Ja­pan (12), Korea (29) and Tai­wan (13). Due to Covid19 pan­demic, the ap­pli­ca­tions had markedly re­duced last year and there were only eight ap­pli­ca­tions from Aus­tralia, China (seven), Ire­land (six) and Sin­ga­pore (10).

Our min­istry had been study­ing why the ap­pli­ca­tions for the state pro­gram that had been quite low com­pared with that in Penin­sular Malaysia and among fac­tors that had been iden­ti­fied was bu­reau­cracy that led to ap­pli­cants not will­ing to come here.

I had also pointed our state government had never stopped of­fer­ing the S-MM2H pro­gram when the fed­eral pro­gram was tem­po­rar­ily sus­pended in June last year to al­low a more com­pre­hen­sive re­view and re-eval­u­a­tion of the pro­gram. Nonethe­less, the cri­te­ria for S-MM2H pro­gram in­cluded place­ment of fixed de­posits in lo­cal banks from RM150,000 for in­di­vid­u­als to RM300,000 for cou­ples.

There is also the re­quire­ment to in­vest in prop­er­ties specif­i­cally for res­i­den­tial pur­pose with at least RM600,000 ap­plies only to ap­pli­cants who are between 40-50 years of age while those who were above 30 years of age could also be con­sid­ered if they are ac­com­pa­ny­ing their chil­dren to study in Sarawak or seek­ing long-term med­i­cal treat­ment. There is the min­i­mum stay pe­riod of 15 days cu­mu­la­tive per year is re­quired and a 10 years pass will be is­sued to suc­cess­ful ap­pli­cants.

We will con­tinue to ac­tively di­ver­sify the tourism industry in Sarawak and be­yond leisure tourism by look­ing at the po­ten­tial of S-MM2H in bring­ing qual­ity vis­i­tors in order to support Sarawak’s Post Covid-19 Devel­op­ment Strat­egy (PCDS). 

Thus, the pro­mo­tion of high yield qual­ity tourism pro­gram like S-MM2H cer­tainly ben­e­fit the tourism sec­tor in Sarawak and we wel­come ex­pa­tri­ates as well as for­eign­ers to ap­ply for the S-MM2H Pro­gram. Once the Covid19 pan­demic sub­sides and the sit­u­a­tion sta­bilises, I be­lieve there will a sharp rise in ap­pli­ca­tions es­pe­cially with re­stric­tions on the fed­eral side and such situation may lead to an increase number of par­tic­i­pants com­ing into Sarawak for the pro­gram.

My humble opinion on the time for a leader from East Malaysia to hold DPM post

Recently I have mentioned my opinion to our media friends that it is now timely for a leader from East Malaysia to hold the post of deputy prime min­is­ter. I per­son­ally feel that the time is ripe for a DPM post to be al­lo­cated to a member of parliament from East Malaysia. This is be­cause we have also con­tributed so much to the devel­op­ment of Malaysia through re­sources, econ­omy, and sta­bil­ity. The good recog­ni­tion by way of a DPM post is very ap­pro­pri­ate.

On an­other mat­ter, I have mentioned that the peo­ple should wait for the of­fi­cial an­nounce­ment by the Yang di-Per­tuan Agong on the choice of the next prime min­is­ter in­stead of spec­u­lat­ing over it because His Majesty will be mak­ing the de­ci­sion on who will be the next PM after get­ting feed­back from MPs. I am sure a ca­pa­ble per­son would be given that con­fi­dence by the MPs to lead Malaysia. We just need to wait for His Majesty’s an­nounce­ment and that de­ci­sion must be re­spected.

It is my opinion on the next gov­ern­ment should be a coali­tion of par­ties from all over Malaysia as no sin­gle party has a clear ma­jor­ity in Par­lia­ment. Perikatan Na­sional (PN), Muafakat Na­sional (MN), or even Barisan Na­sional (BN) are coali­tions of the past and par­ties that form the new gov­ern­ment should not ad­dress them­selves as PN, MN, or even BN.

The lessons learnt from the lead­er­ship cri­sis at fed­eral level in­clude that the fed­eral gov­ern­ment must be fair even to the Op­po­si­tion and politi­cians should be more rea­son­able not to hi­jack the gov­ern­ment. No gov­ern­ment with a slim ma­jor­ity can move for­ward if they are be­ing ha­rassed and run down.

I have called on all par­ties, be they from the gov­ern­ment or the Op­po­si­tion, to put aside their dif­fer­ences and pool to­gether their re­sources to bat­tle the im­me­di­ate prob­lems fac­ing the na­tion, par­tic­u­larly the Covid19 pan­demic and eco­nomic slow­down. I threw caution to the wind that there must be no attempt to hi­jack or change the gov­ern­ment half­way through its term un­less the gov­ern­ment has to­tally failed.

The gov­ern­ment of the day should be fair to the op­po­si­tion MPs and as­sem­bly­men too. They (Op­po­si­tion elected rep­re­sen­ta­tives) must be ac­corded funds to ser­vice their con­stituen­cies. We have to move for­ward.

Thumbs up for BESarawak for their creative short film that won in this year's Los An­ge­les Film Awards (LAFA)

Kudos to Business Events Sarawak (BESarawak) which soon be launching our lat­est ini­tia­tives called "#Re­spon­si­bleSarawak Em­pow­er­ing So­cially Re­spon­si­ble Busi­ness Events Dur­ing Covid-19".  Even though our govern­ment has al­ready vac­ci­nated over 89 per cent of adults and it is the high­est in Malaysia but we must not over­look the im­por­tance of safety pre­cau­tions with the ongoing pandemic.

Congratulations to the team at BESarawak for having won the "Honourable Men­tion for Com­mer­cials" cat­e­gory for its busi­ness events short film ti­tled "Sarawak – New Nor­mal in Busi­ness Events" at this year's Los An­ge­les Film Awards (LAFA).

It is a proud achievement for us because the award is the first in­ter­na­tional film win for the Malaysian busi­ness events in­dus­try pro­duced by BESarawak as part of its "Tribe Legacy Sarawak" mar­ket­ing cam­paign.

It is a collaboration with sev­eral stake­hold­ers from our local busi­ness events and non-­busi­ness events com­mu­ni­ties aimed at ed­u­cating on the safety pro­to­cols when or­gan­is­ing, host­ing and at­tend­ing cor­po­rate meet­ings, cor­po­rate in­cen­tives, con­ven­tions, and ex­hi­bi­tions in Sarawak.

We believe the short film can bet­ter en­force th­ese mea­sures and strongly en­cour­age other in­dus­tries to utilise this approach by making it part of their mar­ket­ing strat­egy so that we can be­come a re­spon­si­ble des­ti­na­tion. 

Such initiative is important in our pursuit to or­gan­ise and host future busi­ness events that com­ply with event and crowd safety reg­u­la­tions. This is also good in our efforts to restart and pro­tect the in­dus­try whereby we must first ed­u­cate our in­dus­try players on what it means to be re­spon­si­ble and how. The film can also serve to become an im­por­tant ed­u­ca­tional re­source that shall at­tract na­tional and in­ter­na­tional del­e­gates again when our borders are going to be re­open for visitors to come in.

The award win­ning short film is interesting because it starts with a tra­di­tional Iban head­hunter chas­ing down an in­ter­na­tional del­e­gate through a rain­for­est but what seems to be a dan­ger­ous en­counter is, in fact, a fig­ment of the del­e­gate’s imag­i­na­tion as he gets his tem­per­a­ture scanned at the con­fer­ence venue, among other pro­to­col pro­ce­dures.

We love the sto­ry­line and it is widely ap­plauded because it is cre­ative and also hu­mor­ous while demon­stra­ting Covid-19 pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sures and mak­ing it re­lat­able to an au­di­ence out­side of the busi­ness events in­dus­try.

Looking forward to the next premier who can continue protect and restore Sarawak's rights and interests

Our local media friends had seek my comments on the issue of next prime minister whom I have mentioned should be the person who can continue to protect and restore Sarawak's rights and interests as enshrined in the Federal Constitution.

The incoming new premier must also be aware of Sarawak's special rights and ensure that they do not diminish because it had been diminishing for the last 50 years and we have been trying to gain back those rights. I have noted that Sarawak had been able to regain a number of its rights during the last one and a half years when Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin was the prime minister. He was sympathetic to us. We hope that whoever takes over after this will continue to work on this matter.

In the meantime, the country will still continue to function properly under the purview of the efficient civil service body despite the absence of the executive branch. I believe that Yang di-Pertuan Agong will be meeting with party leaders for perhaps an interview to see who will be able to gain a confident majority votes from the MPs. 

It could be a new or an old leader and perhaps even Muhiyddin himself if all the MPs are still agreeable with him. I think there is nothing wrong with him being reappointed as the prime minister. Whoever should become the prime minister must remember that he is a father figure that must take care of all the states under his administration fairly.

Celebrating this year's National Day on a modest scale

This year’s state-level National Day celebration will be held based on a hybrid format and on a smaller scale this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This will include a smaller number of attendees for the celebration with the theme “Malaysia Prihatin” (Malaysia Cares).

I have mentioned this to our media friends during the press conference which was held at Wisma Bapa Malaysia in Petra Jaya, Kuching earlier this morning.

The event will take place at our Sarawak Legislative Assembly complex in Petra Jaya on August 31 with a limited number of 100 guests in compliance with the standard operating procedures (SOP) set by State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) and Ministry of Health Malaysia (MOH).

The event will be graced by our Head of State, His Excellency Tun Abdul Taib Mahmud together with his wife, Toh Puan Raghad Kurdi Taib along with Sarawak’s Chief, Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg and state Cabinet members.

The highlights of the celebration will include a musical titled "Semangat Anak Sarawak", inspired by the true story of the Sarawak Rangers' exploits during the Emergency. A special performance on the hard work by our frontliners will also be displayed as well as a documentary on the road to independence from Sarawak's perspective.

We are celebrating the National Day every year to foster patriotism, love for the country and unity. It is also an opportunity for the younger generation to understand the struggles of our leaders to gain independence. The celebration program will also be broadcasted live on the TVS television channel, RTM radio and the Sarawak Public Communications Unit's Facebook page.

Aiming to make Sarawak as one of leading destinations for eco-tourism and business events by 2030

Sarawak is getting involved in the Global Destination Sustainability Index, or GDS Index as part of our post Covid-19 Development Strategy for Tourism, where we aim to make our state one of the leading destinations for ecotourism and business events by 2030.

Kudos to the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture Sarawak in collaboration with Business Events Sarawak and Sarawak Tourism Board in undertaking the initiative which leverage on the GDS-Index as a measurement tool to assess how sustainable Sarawak is for business events and tourism on the global stage.

Such initiative can also assist us in benchmarking our list of destination and to receive insights on shaping the strategy for regeneration especially in post Covid-19.  It can be seen as a collaborative effort that supports destination management organisations and convention bureaus to adopt, promote and recognise responsible practices.

The index is fully aligned with the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) Destination Criteria where Kuching city was chosen as the pilot project for Sarawak. 

In fact, we are the first to undertake this initiative and is a world

first for Malaysia in business events and tourism. Sarawak is also one of the 75 destinations in the world to undertake this project. The benefits and outcomes are enormous not only to just business events and tourism but to our local folks as well. It will encourage and support every industry in Sarawak for the adoption of best practices of sustainability to make Sarawak sustainable for visitors and a place for all of us to live in.

Things can only can better and together we can look forward to brighter days ahead especially where our local folks are concerned.

Paying tribute to our diving queen, Pandelela Pamg Rinong

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics may be over but we are still proud with the huge achievement of our national diving queen, Pandelela Pamg Rinong who had reached the final of the women’s 10m plat­form despite the stiff competition from other upcoming divers. 

I have mentioned this to our media friends last Saturday and we can see (Pandelela) from the preliminary rounds, and then to the (semi­finals) and then made it through to the finals - that is a very big achievement. As a Sarawakian and as Malaysians, we are very proud of her achieve­ment.

I am also so happy to see that despite losing in Tokyo, she is still in high spirit and wanting to go for the next Olympic at Paris in 2024. That is the kind of spirit that we want – that kind of ‘agi idup agi ngelaban’ spirit. The next Olympic will take place in three years’ time and I believe that Pan­delela will continue to compete and represent the nation in other events.

With her current form, she is expected to take part in the post­poned 2021 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Hanoi and the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. At the age of 28, Pandelela has al­ready competed in four Olympic Games in her international career that has spanned over a decade, winning two medals – a bronze in the individual at the 2012 London and a silver in the synchronised four years later in Rio, Brazil.

For me, age is not that important. We should not look at Pandelela’s current age at 28 and consider her fighting spirit. You must have that spirit, such as Uzbekistan’s ageless wonder, Oksana Chusovitina who at 46 had competed in her eighth Olympic in Tokyo.

I was surprised to see her (competing) with other gymnasts who are only 15-16 years old. Although she did not make it to the preliminary rounds, but with her spirit she successfully represented her country in eight Olympic Games. We will always be supportive, as far as Pan­delela is concerned. She has her university degree and she already got a mark on her name. I think on her career, we do not have to worry – any state or nation would love to take her in as a (diving) coach.

Celebrating 130th anniversary of our Sarawak Museum on a modest scale

Today we celebrated the 130th anniversary of our Sarawak Museum which had always been the all-time popular venue to showcase the state’s unique culture and heritage. The old museum building we have along Jalan Tun Abang Openg is also one of the most iconic tourist attractions before the Covid19 pandemic.

Back in 2019, we received a total of 4.66 million visitors who had spent RM11.6 million and this is one of the contributing factors for our heritage sector to thrive and leverage from the tourism industry.

I am very passionate about museums and I can still vividly recall visiting this iconic Sarawak Museum back in my younger days. Visitors would often include visiting museums in their itinerary, regardless of whether travelling domestically or internationally.

I hope our museums will have the pulling effect or Bilbao effect similar to what happened in Bilbao city, Spain with the establishment of Guggenheim Museum. Thus, having museums not only helps to generate the city’s economy but also for the community living within its proximity.

We are also fortunate to have a very supportive government as allocations have been provided for restoration works according to international standards. Moreover, there are various old and historic buildings throughout the state which are in the progress of conversion to become museums. It is good for the tourism industry that is rapidly developing and it contributes to the country’s socio-economic growth. Sarawak is not only known for its multi ethnicity and multiculturalism, but it also has many historical buildings and monuments.

Our Sarawak Museum was built during the reign of Rajah Charles Brooke in 1891 and its development under the Sarawak Museum Campus will be a catalyst for Kuching city’s progress.

I have urged the Sarawak Museum Department to continue with their hard work in ensuring our museums and rich heritage will continue to be preserved because we are not marketing Sarawak as a shopping destination, but for culture and heritage.

Staying calm and be rationale in weathering current political crisis

The local media fraternity had seek my personal views and comments on the current political crisis  but I have expressed my confidence for the top leadership of Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), in which the PBB is a component party, will make a wise decision in facing the storm.

I have mentioned that we still supports the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government led by Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin to ensure that the federal government would remain stable. There will be no “frogging” in GPS and its leaders will stay true to their support for the sake of Malaysia’s stability. When we (GPS) give our support to PN before this, it was purely for the sake of stability and we will still hold onto that. I believe that GPS leaders are rationale.

I have also expressed hope for the Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah and the palace, would not be dragged into the crisis. Let the palace remain as the place where the government seeks advice and guidance and not to be dragged into personal issues as it is really not good for Malaysia.

I had also asserted that GPS leaders will neither “be like frogs jumping here and there” nor will they be influenced by political events in Peninsular Malaysia. I’m sure PN will study what is good for Malaysia and proceed from there. That is how I foresee how our leaders will be making the decision. We (GPS) will not be dragged into all this polemic in Peninsular Malaysia. 

On Sarawak side, GPS will “wait and see” for the time being as things unfold in Putrajaya, but the Sarawak government will always ensure stability of the nation including the State in terms of politics and economy.

On whether there will be a meeting to discuss GPS-led government’s stance on this matter, our Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg will know what to do.Today is also his birthday. Let him cherish his birthday first, but definitely he will be contacted by leaders of component parties.

Thumbs up to announcement of Bantuan Khas Sarawakku Sayang (BKSS) 7.0 package

Thumbs up to our government as agreed to give a special one-off financial assistance of RM10,000 to active businesses registered in Sarawak under the Bantuan Khas Sarawakku Sayang (BKSS) 7.0 package.

Our heartfelt thanks to Chief Minister, Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Abang Haji Openg who announced this special aid this afternoon and the financial assistance is aimed to alleviate their burden caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. In his speech, our Chief Minister had mentioned the decision was made after considering the requests from local business associations and guilds affected by the pandemic. The requests for financial assistance were to sustain their businesses, particularly to cover operational costs,

including rental and wages of their employees, especially among our small and medium

enterprises (SMEs).

Our Sarawak government will provide a special one-off financial assistance of RM10,000 for active businesses in Sarawak registered with SOCSO as of Dec 31, 2020 and such measure will help to ease the financial burden of approximately 40,000 active businesses. The financial assistance will cost the Sarawak government a direct expenditure of over RM400 million. The assistance will be paid in two tranches whereby RM5,000 in September and the balance is payable in December this year.

Overwhelming response to our recent "Professional Talk Program: National Level Anti Drug Abuse Campaign 2021"

It was heartening to see the overwhelming response to the recent "Professional Talk Program: National Level Anti Drug Abuse Campaign 2021" which was jointly organized by the Malaysian Drug Prevention Association Sarawak (PEMADAM Sarawak) together with its branch in Kanowit and Kanowit District Education Office.

The online program started on July 31 and ended on August 1 where 8,500 people took part on the first day and 6,500 of them took part on the second day. The response to the two-day program had shown the keen interest and support of the community, including the youths from Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia towards this anti-drugs initiative.

This program is one of the initiatives undertaken by PEMADAM Sarawak in its continuous efforts to provide anti-drugs awareness to the communities in Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia especially on the dangers of substance abuse that can destroy the future generations to come. The program is also aimed to help the youths to be aware of the drugs and substance abuse issues that must be avoided so as not to get caught in the menace which had affected people from other countries as well. 

We congratulate the organizers led by Sarawak State Education Director, Dr Norisah binti Suhaili who is also chief of PEMADAM Sarawak’s Education Bureau, for the success in organizing the program. Big thanks to our guest speakers who had delivered talks in this program who include Associate Professor Dr. Puteri Hayati Megat Ahmad, a member of the Malaysian Board of Counselors; Associate Professor Dr. Mohd. Nazri bin Mohd. Daud from the Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaysia Sabah; Mr. Indra Sotarduga Simorangkir, from the National Narcotics Agency of West Java Province, Indonesia and Dr. Hari Nugroho from the Rehabilitation Center of the Indonesian National Narcotics Agency.