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Press
Statement
by Hon. Dr. Yee Moh Chai, M.P. for Tanjung Aru (P.156)
in Kota Kinabalu
on 13 August 1998
Press
Release by the Minister of Education on 12 August 1998 regarding
the UMS
I have today sent a letter to the Minister of Education, Yang Berhormat
Dato Seri Mohd. Najib bin Tun Hj. Abdul Razak in response to his mentioned
press release. A copy of my said letter has also been copied to the
University Malaysia Sabah and my Constituents respectively.
In
essence, the content of my said letter is as follow:
"I
refer to YB Minister’s said press release and I must register my
deep dissatisfaction with the way YB Minister has been treating
such an important issue as the UMS.
I
believe YB Minister owes the people of Sabah an apology for your
failure to treat my parliamentary question on UMS seriously to the
extend that a misleading information has been given to the people
in the Parliament. I refer to YB Minister’s black and white answer
given to me on the 29th July 1998.( YB Minister has in
the said parliamentary reply stated that there were only 265 Sabahans
out of a total of 2680 students at the UMS.)
I
am also very surprised by YB Minister’s attitude towards my asking
a question that concerns such an important issue as the UMS. Being
a member of parliament, I am sure that even YB Minister yourself
could not deny that I have a vested interest in ensuring the welfare
of the people whom I represent would not be overlooked.
I
must also register my great disappointment with YB Minister that
my question over such an important issue which concerns all the
students in Sabah has been implied by YB Minister as an "exploitation
of the issue". I hope YB Minister’s way of handling this matter
would not send the wrong message to all our students in Malaysia
that any questions raised by a member of parliament legitimately
could be implied as exploitation. I believe this is not the way
our students should be thought about democracy at their respective
schools, least of all, at our sacrosanct parliament.
In
any event, I hope the whole incident here would serve as a useful
reminder to all of us on the concern we have towards the education
of our children.
Lastly,
I hope that the so called clarification of YB Minister on this occasion
regarding my UMS question would be of a complete nature and that
it would not need another similar clarification in the future.
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