A Sarawak non-governmental organisation, on a drive to stop the incoming of Bangladeshi workers in oil palm plantations in the state, has been told by a state minister to recruit 30,000 local workers to make up for the shortages in the sector.
State Land Development Minister Tan Sri James Masing (pic) reportedly issued this challenge to Gerakan Anak Sarawak (Gasak) president Abun Sui Anyit, who recently demanded the state government to give priority to Sarawakians instead of bringing in Bangladeshi workers.
“It is not that we didn’t try,” Masing was reported in The Borneo Post today as saying in response to Abun Sui’s remark.
“We have tried all this while, but there are no takers.
“I want Abun and whoever is willing to help, to please come forward with 30,000 local workers who can help us harvest oil palm fruits as soon as possible,” he told The Borneo Post.
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James Masing is no different from a Barbados sugar plantation owner of the 18th century demanding more slaves for the good of the economy (his economy).
This Land Development Minister used to campaign for the betterment of his native Dayak people. But now he is sadly bought over by a corrupt regime, which oppresses his people by demanding they surrender their lands to ever larger oil palm plantations.
Masing has become rich, while his people suffer from this kind of ‘development’.
This is because the people who run Sarawak have no intention of paying fair wages for the exploitation of this crop. They prefer to import thousands of desperate foreign workers from lands already driven to dust by greed (Sarawak’s turn is coming up all too soon).
They pay these workers well below the permitted minimum Malaysian salary and below what a local person could live off. They take their passports and they lock them up in compounds.
This is why Masing knows that Gasak could never find locally the 30,000 workers he craves to supply his ever-growing blight of oil palm encroachment on the Borneo Jungle. He needs slaves for his purposes.
How Mr Masing faces his maker in church each Sunday is a wonder to the rest of us.