Borneanisation: PM's rhetoric only to fool Sabahans

By Peter Marajin

When Najib said "he would really like to see more Sabahans becoming heads of Government departments in Putrajaya and at the same time more Malaysians from Semenanjung serving in Sabah" he is only reiterating Kuala Lumpur's fundamental failure to honour the terms of the Malaysian Agreement legally entered by five entities namely - Great Britain, Federation of Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak, and Sabah in 1963. One of the terms of the Agreement appended under the IGC Report is what is now known as 'Borneanisation of the Federal Service'. Under the Borneanisation programmes all federal posts must be filled up by Sabahans and not West Malaysians.
But after 49 years of Sabah forming the Federation of Malaysia together with the other already independent countries (Malaya, Singapore and Sarawak), Sabahans can only lament in awe as most federal top posts in Sabah are monopolised by West Malaysians with the unacceptable perennial excuse that Sabahans are not qualified. And here the Prime Minister of Malaysia said 'he would really like to see more Sabahans becoming heads of Departments' after 49 long years. What a shame! If Najib is sincere he, being the head of the ruling party, would just simply carry out the Borneanisation programmes now and at once without all the rhetoric to fool the Sabahans.

This only goes to show that right from the beginning the Malayan leaders' motive, which now includes that of Najib's, was to "colonise" Sabah and Sarawak and deprive her people of their accorded rights under the terms of the Agreement and as citizens of this country living as free people.

Malaysians of all creeds will have a sense of belonging to this country only when justice is accorded to them equally including those in Sabah and Sarawak. The Prime Minister MUST give back to the Sabahans and Sarawakians what the KL leaders had taken and are taking away from them and which are rightly theirs under the Malaysian Agreement and not to treat the East Malaysians as colonial servants of the KL Masters. With equal rights to employments, socio-economics and political developments then, and only then, the Sabahans will truly be proud to be called Malaysians.

Peter Marajin is a practising lawyer and outspoken on NCR and land rights and Borneanisation cases, he is also Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) Supreme Councillor.