I urge the government to implement the local election, and let the wind of democratization starts from Kota Kinabalu.
Under the 11th Malaysia Plan, the government would like to develop Kota Kinabalu into Growth Catalyst City, but this goal would not be attained without the process of democratization.
To make this dream come true, first thing that must do is to push for the democratization. And the first step towards democratization is decentralization, which means the delegation of power from the federal government to local government. Therefore, the local government must have the right to carry out the local election. This is the only way to ensure the rights of local residents.
The Sabah state government should start the implementation of local election at Kota Kinabalu City Hall, return the third vote to the people to elect their preferred candidate to become the mayor.
Only the person that given mandate by the people through their vote will be a mayor that responsible and put the people first as well as listen to the voice of people.
There are few main problems faced by the people of Kota Kinabalu, such as traffic congestion and lack of parking space, and I hope that the traffic of Kota Kinabalu will not become as worse as the capital city Kuala Lumpur.
When will the Foh Sang multi level parking lot be built as promised, until now we did not hear anything about this project that can provide 500 parking space in the future.
Furthermore, I would like to suggest the government to learn from Copenhagen, Danish capital which has complete bicycle lane in the whole city. According to the Sabah Corridor project, our government will construct a bicycle lane which connecting Tanjung Aru and University Malaya Sabah and its length is 23.5 KM. But until now only a 5KM bicycle lane had been done, and it spent 7 years to build.
With this degree of inefficiency, the remaining 19.5 KM that yet to be finished will take how long to be completed? And this project that involving RM17.5 million, so far how much is already spend? If the government can’t even complete this kind of project, how about those larger projects?
The public transport system of Kota Kinabalu is far behind Kuala Lumpur, although the DBKK had drafted a blue plan for the public transportation of Kota Kinabalu, but if DBKK do not get the allocation from Federal Government, there is no way to fulfill the target.
As the MP of Kota Kinabalu, I do not require much. I wish that Kota Kinabalu will have a complete and successful Bus Rapid Transit system which is widely used by many modern city. This is our lowest demand, can our government fulfill it?