The announcement by the Minister for Rural and Regional Development, Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob that the Orang Asli Development Department (Jakoa) will provide transportation services for 16,905 Orang Asli pupils at 94 primary schools with hostels nationwide to enable them to return home every fortnight is most laughable and grossly inadequate as a proper government response to the scandal and tragedy of the SK Tohoi seven missing Orang Asli children for seven weeks five of whom had perished.
What the country wants is not just a new transportation service to Orang Asli pupils in school hostels to go home once a fortnight but a complete review of the 58-year government programme to bring Orang Asli communities to the mainstream of national development (which is clearly an abysmal failure) and a total revamp of government services to uplift Orang Asli in all fields of human endeavour.
Why for instance, after 58 years of upliftment of Orang Asli in the country, there is not a single Orang Asli who is a Minister or even a Deputy Minister in the Federal Government, or members on State Excos in the various states with significant Orang Asli communities?
Let the Minister for Rural and Regional Development announce in Parliament on Monday on behalf of the Najib Cabinet a “New Deal for Orang Asli” in the emergency debate requisitioned by DAP MP for Sepueh Teresa Kok on the aftermath of the scandal and tragedy of the SK Tohoi seven missing Orang Asli children in Gua Musang. Continue reading “Can the government announce a New Deal for Orang Asli in Parliament on Monday in the debate on Teresa Kok’s urgent motion on the scandal/tragedy of seven missing Orang Asli children of SK Tohoi for seven weeks?”