Parliament: Bakun Opens Job Opportunities To Original Residents

25 November 2010

KUALA LUMPUR, 25 Nov (Bernama) -- The Bakun Hydroelectric Dam which will be fully operational next year will open opportunities for various types of work to original residents of the area.

Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Dr Awang Adek Hussin said the new jobs will be in the technical field, in information technology, in maintenance work and as boat skippers and rescuers of wild life.

These are among the jobs that the project will create, and "we are of the view that local residents should be given priority," he told the Dewan Rakyat here Thursday.

He as replying to Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj (PSM-Sungai Siput) and Datuk Ago Anak Dagang (BN-Kanowit) on job opportunities for the original residents of Bakun who have long been involved in agriculture and are said to lack skills for work in other sectors.

Awang said the government agreed that priority in providing jobs be given to the original residents now living around the dam.

Answering a question from Dr Jeyakumar on a promise that the Sarawak government was supposed to have made to original residents of Sungai Balui at Belaga, Awang said there was no such pledge.

"The Sarawak government never promised to give a house and five acres of agricultural land to affected residents, including those at Sungai Balui in Belaga," he said.

Every family had been paid compensation covering the land, house and crop affected by the construction of the Bakun dam, and also got three acres of agricultural land, he added.

Awang said the federal government could not intervene in the claims of the original residents for a bigger lot because land came under the purview of the state government.

-- BERNAMA

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