INFORMATIVE: Anyi (right) reading The Borneo Post’s report on Hulu Rajang with his friends in one of the coffee shops in Kapit yesterday.
KAPIT: The next two weeks will be a packed schedule for BN candidate for Hulu Rajang, Wilson Ugak Kumbong who intends to visit all longhouses in Balleh and Belaga areas.
He said he would be concentrating on the smaller and scattered longhouses first.
“As I have made my rounds to most longhouses in Balleh and Belaga areas while lobbying for the seat, now I would like to visit the small settlements that I haven’t been to. I will revisit the bigger settlements nearer polling day,” Ugak told The Borneo Post here yesterday.
He had started going to the ground since October 2011 after getting the green light from his party’s top leadership.
“Now that I have been endorsed by the BN, I will visit all 195 longhouses in Balleh as well as over 30 longhouses in Belaga area,” Ugak said.
His director of operations, Wilson Nyabong, disclosed that he had divided his team into 10 groups to tackle six polling stations in Balleh and four in Belaga.
“When they have any outstanding issue, we will send our flying squad to counter issues raised by the opposition,” he explained.
He said among the major issues raised by the opposition, especially PKR, were NCR land and timber concessions.
“In Balleh the people understand the approach taken by their assemblyman and our president Tan Sri Dr James Masing. It’s not easy to develop an area that big and they don’t mind waiting for a little while as long as we explain the reasons properly,” he said.
He said the party was pinning their hopes on Belaga assemblyman and Culture Assistant Minister Liwan Lagang to assist Belaga where most of the people are Orang Ulus.
Nyabong, who is also a political secretary to the chief minister admitted that the biggest challenge faced by the BN in Hulu Rajang was logistics as there were many small and isolated settlements in the area almost the size of Pahang. On the threat from the opposition, Nyabong said SWP’s candidate George Lagong was not much of a danger.
The people had rejected him even his own longhouse folks in Nanga Entawau, Balleh as in the last state elections he promised to stand against Masing in Balleh but switched to Pelagus at the eleventh hour.
“The people said he has not kept his word to approve grants for them in Pelagus,” he said.
As for PKR candidate Abun Sui, a Kenyah, Nyabong said the people in the area, especially the Orang Ulus in Belaga, still needed assistance from the BN government.
“Not everyone supports him as they know he was opposing for the sake of opposing, and does not have an agenda to improve the people’s livelihood,” said Nyabong.
Nyabong was quick to admit that the battle was far from over.
“As for now, we have a long way to go to ensure BN gets a bigger majority,” he added.
Meanwhile Ugak’s brother Anyi Kumbong commended The Borneo Post’s coverage of Hulu Rajang for nomination day but he hoped it would distribute more copies to the area as the newspaper has been selling like hot cakes.- theborneopost.
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