KOTA KINABALU: Issues raised by the Opposition Parti Warisan are based on reality and the true situation faced by the people in the state, says Elopura assemblyman Calvin Chong Ket Kiun.
He said Warisan was highlighting the problems people faced daily, including serious water shortages, incessant power cuts, and bad road conditions across the state.
Chong said these issues needed to be addressed and not just paid lip service to in response to Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor’s accusation that Warisan and its president, Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal, were spreading untruths to put the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) state government in a bad light.
Chong, a Warisan supreme council member, said that the GRS chairman’s attack against Warisan was akin to shooting himself in the foot.
“Warisan is only talking about facts that are already known to all the people in Sabah,” he said in a statement Sunday (March 10).
Chong said Shafie was not wrong to say that the GRS state government had failed to resolve key issues facing the state as people continued to struggle to obtain basic needs.
He highlighted the “salty water” problem faced by consumers in Sandakan, which has greatly affected the people in the east coast Sabah district as an example.
“This is just a reflection of the inefficiency of the Sabah government in resolving this urgent issue,” he said.
“The people in Sandakan are forced to buy bottled water for daily use and are concerned for the health of especially poor families who cannot afford bottled water,” he added.
On Saturday (March 9), Hajiji accused his main rivals, Warisan and Shafie, of “constructively spreading political untruths” to smear the GRS and Pakatan Harapan-led state government.
He said such political spins were aimed at painting a picture to humiliate the GRS-PH government as a failure.
Hajiji said that Shafie was ignoring the facts about what the government was doing and spreading untruths to slander the state government.