Orang Biya - Development Priorities: The Voice of the Bidayuh in the Periphery

Posted by Suara Pinggiran on February 24, 2005 at 07:28:10:

Development Priorities: The Voice of the Bidayuh in the Periphery

INTRODUCTION
In most developing countries, social transformation among the rural dwellers remains a high priority because the majority of the population, and of the poor, inhibits in rural areas. In Sarawak the priority to develop the rural areas remains a top agenda amongst its policy makers. Nevertheless, progress in social transformation has been hampered by structural and institutional biases against the rural dwellers. The basic prerequisite for social transformation in the rural areas is for the government to bring about development to the periphery.
This essay will discuss the perceptions of the Bidayuh community leaders who are currently residing in the remote area of Ulu Padawan in the Kuching Division on development priorities in their villages. The essay was based on a field survey and interviews with the village headmen and the members of the village development and security committee of nine kampongs (JKKK) in the Ulu Padawan area. Administratively, the villages in Ulu Padawan are under the jurisdiction of Teng Bukap Sub-District Office, (a Sub-District within Kuching District Office and Kuching Division). In terms of local government administration these villages are under the jurisdiction of the Padawan Municipal Council. This means, the villages are supposed to pay their annual rates to the Padawan Municipal Council, and at the same time enjoys the municipality services such as street lighting, garbage collection, waste disposal as well as the council?s public health programs. But, because of the remoteness, the local authority were not able to provide such services to the kampongs . In term of political boundaries, the villages falls under the Parliamentary constituency of P. 198 Mambong , and the State Legislative Assembly seat of N. 15 Bengoh . Both seats are won on the National Front or Barisan Nasional (BN) ticket.
Uu Padawan is located about 60 kilometers away from the Capital city, Kuching. In spite of its nearness to the capital city, some of the villages in the Ulu Padawam are still being deprived of development and as such the area remains in the periphery.
The objectives of the study is to find out what are the views of the village headmen and the Village Development and Security Committee, in determining the development priorities in the Ulu Padawan area. There are nine (9) villages located within the area that are included in this study. In view of the inaccessibility and the distance of other villages such as Kampong Semban, the researcher has purposely decided not to include it in the study.

LITERATURE REVEW
As the majority of the population in Sarawak lives in rural areas, issues of social transformation and rural development remain as the top priority both for the State as well as the Federal Government (Cramb and Reece 1988; King 1988; Abdul Majid Mat Salleh et. al. 1990; Cleary and Eaton 1992). However, the population in the rural areas are sparsely scattered throughout the remote areas of the State. The population density for Sarawak was reported at only 13 people per square kilometre (Malaysia 1994). To overcome these problems of isolation, two prong rural development strategies advocated in Sarawak are to concentrate resources in large-scale land development schemes and bring people to these centres, and to develop areas with a higher concentration of population as Rural Growth Centres (RGC) (Numpang, 2003). However, these land schemes have encountered many problems (King 1986; Cramb 1992) and in any case can only cater for a fraction of the rural population. While the RGCs remains as an important rural development agenda which has not been fully implementedby the State .
According to Todaro (1994) there are three main objectives of development; (1) to increase the production of basic needs such as food, shelter, health care and security, (2) to improve the living standard by increase income, job opportunities, and better education, place more emphasis on value system and humanity which in turn will bring about better quality of life and self esteem, (3) broaden the economic cake and choice which will enable individuals and the nation to prosper. Seers (1969) states that development of the nation can be accelerated when the rate of poverty, unemployment and inequality in both income and wealth distribution can be minimized. While Mayers (1972) states that development planning is important as this will enable the development projects to be carried out as planned and systematically in order to fulfill its desired objectives.
Lipton(1977), echoing the dependency theorists' notion of core-periphery relationships, has identified the problem of "urban bias". He argues that there is a systematic tendency for a country's resources to be unfairly and inefficiently distributed in favour of urban areas, to the detriment of people living in rural areas. Chambers (1983) exposes the "invisible" side of rural poverty and highlights some of the inequalities within rural areas. Both Chambers (1983) and Johnston and Clark (1982) advocate the use of broad based rural development strategies that benefit the majority of the rural poor. Rural roads represent the link between the urban "core" and the rural "periphery". They have the potential to counter some of the disadvantages of remoteness and provide benefits to all groups within a community. They do not inherently favour the rural elite, thus satisfying Chambers'(1983) requirement for rural development strategies that benefit women, the most remote, and the most poor.
In addition, rural road provision addresses Johnston and Clark's (1982) call for a three-pronged approach to rural development, addressing production, consumption and institutional aspects of development. There exists a vast literature on the impacts of rural roads (Windle 1997). While in the past assessment has concentrated on economic impacts (discussed in relation to Sarawak in Windle and Cramb (1997), more recent studies have shown that social impacts are equally if not more important. This essay, highlights the disadvantages associated with remoteness in the periphery as well as the community leaders? perceptions on the development priorities for their area, Ulu Padawan.

METHODOLOGY
This is an exploratory study to find out the perceptions of community leaders from the nine rural villages in Ulu Padawan on development priorities for their villages. Since this is an exploratory study a purpose sampling techniques were employed where only the village headmen and Chairmen and committee members of the Jawatankuasa Kemajuan dan Keselamatan Kampung (JKKK) were asked to fill in a self administered questionnaires. The village headmen and the Chairmen of the JKKK were chosen because they are seen as agents of change in the rural areas. Apart from that, they are also responsible in identifying development projects in their respective villages and convey the requests for development to either their elected representative such as Member of Parliament or State Legislative Assembly Member, or to Government Officers. Virtually this means all the nine village headmen had to answer the questionnaires. Duly filled questionnaires were than analyzed the SPSS version 11. Some of the village headman were later interviewed to solicit their opinions.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
Based on table no 1 Ulu Padawan can be divided into two zones; villages which are accessible by road and villages which are not accessible by road. There are six villages which are not accessible by road, while there are three are accessible by road. The only mode of transport to the six villages which are not accessible by road is by foot. Kampong Temurang and Kampong Abang can easily be accessible with the completion of the Borneo Height highway in 2000. The completion of a feeder road in 2001 had made Kampong Danu accessible by road too. There are 370 households in these nine villages, with Kampong Biya Kiding has the biggest households of 70 families, and a population of 453 people. The second is Kampong Abang, with a population of 484 inhabitants. The smallest village is Biya Jaber which accounts for only 18 families and 97 people respectively. In terms of accessibility, one has to walk for about three hours through unfriendly topography, from Kampong Benguh to Sait, Rejoi, and Biya Jaber. And about six hours up hill to Kampong Semban. While it takes more than two hours from Kampong Abang to walk to Kampong Kiding, and four to five hours to reach Sapit. In view of it remoteness and rough topography it is apt to classify these villages as the Bidayuh villages in the periphery.

Table No. 1: Villages in Ulu Padawan which was included in the Study
Zone Name of Village No of household Population
Not accessible by road Sait 42 306
Rejoi 29 326
Sapit 33 228
Kiding 70 453
Biya Jaber 18 97
Simuti 40 291
Accessible by road Danau 47 453
Abang 66 484
Temurang 25 158
Total 370 2718
Source: Teng Bukap Sub District Office, 1998.

From the nine villages that were chosen in the study, only Kampong Abang and Kampong Simuti get 24 hours electricity supply from the Sarawak Electricity Supply Corporation (SESCO). While there are only three Primary schools which are located in the area. SK Kambug which serves the villages of Kampong Biya Kiding, Sapit, and Kampong Asum. While school going children from Kampong Abang, Temurang and Biya attend primary school education at SK Abang. Those from Kampong Simuti attend primary school at Kampong Sadir. Primary school children from Kampong Danu have to go to Kampong Benguh for their primary school education.
Meanwhile, there is no provision for Secondary School in this area. Secondary school going children have to attend their secondary school education at either SMK Padawan or SMK Siburan, both schools are boarding schools which are located further from this remote area. Thus secondary school children as young as thirteen years old have to be separated from their parents and stay at the boarding school and be more independent. There are also some advantages of sending young children to boarding schools. The students begin to learn how to become independent. The school administration will allocate appropriate time for them to study especially at night. This enable the students to be more focused on their studies with out other disturbances such as helping their parent with the house chores. The other advantage is parents do not have to fork daily pocket expenses to their school going children. Foods, which is often a balanced diet, and boarding is provided for with minimal fees at the boarding school.
However,

1. Development Priorities: The Basic Needs
The analysis of the needs of the respondents were computed based on their priority. From the survey, there are five major types of amenities which both the Ketua Kampongs and the members of the JKKKs have identified as their priority (Table no. 2). The five public utilities are, 24 hours electricity supply from the SECCO supply grid, tar seal road, telephone (both fixed line and cellular phone), clean water and electricity supply, and health care services.
Table no. 2: The five main development priorities of the
villages in Ulu Padawan
Name of utilities Percentage score according to priority
(%) Percentage score not as a priority
(%)
24 hours electricity supply 79.4 14.7
Tar seal roads 70.6 29.3
Telephone 70.6 11.8
Clean water supply 64.8 26.4
Health care services 64.8 20.5
Source: Data computed from the questionnaires

2. Electricity Supply: A top Priority
For those residing in the kampongs which are not supplied by with electricity from SESCO grid, they are of the opinion that 24 hours electricity as their top priority. There were 79.4 % of the respondents Life in a village can be made more easier with 24 hours supply of electricity. Electrical gadgets, basic household appliances such as television set, transistor and other modern household necessities operate mostly on electricity . All the villages in Ulu Padawan are deprived of 24-hour electricity supply. As an alternative source of energy to the villages, generators become a common source of electricity. These generators were purchased under the Rural Minority Project (MRP) and were being supplied to some of the kampongs. However, electricity supply from generators are unreliable, it is only operational from seven o?clock until 9.30 pm in the evening. While at Kampong Sait, the villagers are able to enjoy electricity supply from the Solar electricity grid by the Ministry of Rural Development. Whatever the source of energy are, there is still a larger portion of the rural community in Ulu Padawan who are still bein deprived of 24 hour electricity supply from SESCO.

3. Tar Sealed Road and telephone: A Second Priority
After electricity supply, tar seal road and telephone (both fixed line and cellular) become the second priority for the rural dwellers. There are 70.6 % of the respondents who claimed that these two utilities ? tar seal roads and telephone as their second priority. Road access provided an important means to improve the mobility of human and goods. Road is best considered in terms of transport modes used in Ulu Padawan because of the absence of navigable rivers. The Bengoh road provides Bidayuh households in the area with access both to intermediate market bazaars, and to Kuching (approximately 1-1.5 hr by car). There are five villages in the area of influence of the Bengoh road. Semban and Rejoi represented the "very bad access" domain (approximately four hours walk from the road); so is Bojong and Taba Sait represented the "bad access" domain (approximately two hours walk from Kampong Benguh. With the development of roads, the rural dwellers are able to market their farm produce to the town with ease. Apart from that, motorcycles and cars can reach up to their door steps. As it is now they are only able to bring their farm products only during the weekends to Siburan, Kota Padawan, Kota Sentosa and to the city for sale. In addition, their loves ones who reside outside the villages could visit their aged parent and their other siblings in the villages more frequently .
Telephone (both fixed line and cellular and/or mobile phone) become the second basic utilities which rural dwellers of Ulu Padawan years to have. From the survey, none of the kampongs inhabitants owns any form of fixed or mobile phones. Because of the remoteness and the unfriendly terrain, it is not profitable for the service providers to provide such service to the area in the near future, unless the service providers are willing to install solar powered public phones. But, telephone remains as their second priority because through telephone they are able to get connected and keep in touch with their siblings and friends.

4. Water Supply and Better Health Services: A Third Priority
The third priority is clean water supply and better health care services. About 65 percent (64.8 % to be exact) of the respondents were of the perception that water and better health services as their third priority. All the villages in Ulu Padawan do not have a regular supply of treated water. However, all the villages are being supplied with gravity-fed supply from the streams nearby their villages. For various reasons, this type of water supply is sometimes unreliable. For example during the draught season, the stream may runs dry and consequently the kampongs will be deprived of water. When it rains, the streams will be flooded and as a result water supply to the individual households will be murky. Hence during the draught season, villagers has to depend on water from the stream, and whenever it rains, villagers has to resort to storing rain water for their consumption.
In spite of the remoteness of some of the villages in Ulu Padawan, the villagers are not being deprived of obtaining basic health care. There are two Rural Health Clinics which are found within the vicinity of the area. Padawan Rural Health Clinic is located at Kampong Anah Rais, which caters for the health care, maternity and child health (MCH) of the villages from Kampong Simuti, Kiding, Sapit and Abang. For villages residing in Kampong Sait Rejoi, Danu, Temurang and Biya Jaber, they can visit the MCH Clinic located at Kampong Benguh. Apart from that, health care services are also provided by the Sarawak Flying Doctor Services of the Medical Services Department. The villagers from Kampong Sait, Kiding, Sapit and Rejoi enjoy the services of the Flying Doctors, which fly to their villages quite regularly.

3. Development Projects of Less Priority
Currently there are only two primary schools at Ulu Padawan. The respondents did not indicate the building of primary schools in the area as their top three priority. The two schools at Ulu Padawan are, SK Kamug, which serves the villages from Biya Kiding, Jaber, Kakas, Asum and Sapit, a full boarding primary school. The other primary school was SK Rejoi, which serves four kampongs namely, Sait, Bojong, Rejoi and Semban. This is also a small rural school which has a boarding facilities . About 38 percent of the respondents said that the setting up of a primary school as their priority.
As mentioned earlier, there is no secondary school in Ulu Padawan. Setting up of a secondary school has never been a priority in the area because this will hinder the socialization process of Bidayuh school going children which is seen as detrimental to nation-building. The purpose of building a school is to allow students of other races to mix around and learn each others culture. This will help create a harmonious society and bangsa Malaysia. The findings show that 35.2 percent agreed that setting up of a secondary is a priority

Table no 3. Development project which is of less priority
Name of amenities Percentage score according to priority Percentage score not as a priority
Primary school 38.3 23.5
Secondary school 35.2 41.1
Place of worship 26.4 61.5
Police station 23.5 35.1
Play ground 10.5 58.9
Post office 17.6 26.6
Community hall 17.6 61.7
Fire station 17.6 64.4
Football field 14.6 73.3
Source: Data computed from the questionnaires

Table no 3 above shows some of the amenities which the respondents think is of a lower priority towards the development and social transformation of the villagers in Ulu Padawan. Place of worship, such as church is not a priority. At present, there is a provision for a church and a community hall at the kampongs. In addition, it would be too expensive to set up a police station, post office and a fire station in Ulu Padawan. After all life is always peaceful in the rural area. Rough topography in Ulu Padawan will make it difficult to construct football field. The construction of a football field in this type of terrain will incur a large amount of funds. (Elaborate on the implications without this facility)

CONCLUSION
This essay have highlighted three main development priorities in Ulu Padawan. The priorities are; provision for 24 hours electricity supply from the SESCO electricity supply grid, tar sealed road and telephone (both fixed lines and cellular) services, clean water supply as well as better medical and health services. These are the basic utilities which will accelerate the phase of social transformation in Ulu Padawan. However, in spite of the fact that Sarawak has achieved 43 years of independence, there has been no concerted effort to develop Ulu Padawan.

References
Abdul Majid Mat Salleh, Hatta Solhee and Mohd. Yusof Kasim (eds) (1990), Socio-EconomicDevelopment in Sarawak: Policies and Strategies for the 1990s, AZAM: Kuching
Abdullah, H. and Z.H. Mustapha (1985), `Road Infrastructure and Agricultural Development: A Case of Sabah', Sumber, 1:105-122
Bonney, R.S.P. (1966), `Road Building and Economic Development in Sabah', Development Digest, 4(2):21-33
Buang, A. (1981), `Distance, Accessibility and Agricultural Production. Some Prelimnary Findings from Subdistrict Parit, Peninsular Malaysia', Ilmu Alam, 10:19-46
Casley, D.J. and K. Kumar (1988) The Collection, Analysis, and Use of Monitoring and Evaluation Data, published for the World Bank, Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore
Chambers, R. (1983), Rural Development: Putting the Last First, Longman: London
Chisholm, M.C. (1979), Rural Settlement and Land Use, 3rd ed, Hutchinson: London
Cleary, M. and P.Eaton (1992), Borneo: Change and Development, Oxford University Press: New York
Cramb, R.A. (1992), `Problems of State-Sponsored Land Schemes for Small Farmers: The Case of Sarawak, Malaysia', Pacific Viewpoint, 33(1):58-78
Cramb, R.A. (1993), `Shifting Cultivation and Sustainable Agriculture in East Malaysia: ALongitudinal Case Study', Agricultural Systems 42:209-226
Cramb, R.A. and G. Dixon (1988), `Development in Sarawak: An Overview' in R.A.
Cramb andR.H.W. Reece (eds), Development in Sarawak: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, Monash Paper on Southeast Asia No.17, Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University: Melbourne pp. 1-19
Hughes, W. (1969). Social Benefits through Improved Transport in Malaya' in E.T.Haefele (ed)
Transport and National Goals, The Brookings Institution, Transport Research Program: Washington D.C. pp.105-121
Johnston, B.F. and W.C. Clark (1982) Redesigning Rural Development. A Strategic Perspective, Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore
Kaur, A. (1993), `Transport and the Sarawak Economy, 1841-1983', Borneo Research Bulletin,25:76-100.20
King, V.T. (1986), `Land Settlement Schemes and the Alleviation of Rural Poverty in Sarawak, East Malaysia: A Critical Commentary', Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science,14(1):71-99
King, V.T. (1988), `Models and Realities: Malaysian National Planning and East Malaysian Development Problems', Modern Asian Studies, 22(2):263-298
Leigh, M. (1979), `Is There Development in Sarawak? Political Goals and Practice', in J.C. Jackson and M. Rudner (eds) Issues in Malaysian Development, Asian Studies Association ofAustralia, Heinemann Educational Books: Singapore, pp. 339-374
Lipton, M. (1977) Why People stay Poor: Urban Bias in World Development, Temple Smith: London
Numpang, A. J. (2003). ?Mapping Rural Development in Sarawak? paper presented in the Social Transformation Seminar, organized by the Sarawak Dayak Graduates Association, at Santubong Kuching Resort on 15th February, 2003.
Niew, Shong Tong, (1978), `The Impact of Road Networks on Rural Development in Sarawak, East Malaysia', in R.D.Hill and J.M.Bray (eds), Geography and the Environment in Southeast Asia, Proceedings of the Dept. of Geography and Geology Jubilee Symposium, University of Hong Kong, 21-25 June 1976, University of Hong Kong Press: Hong Kong, pp.247-253
Niew, Shong Tong and Lim Heng Kow, (1977), Research Project on the Socio-Economic Impact of Roads in Sarawak, Vol.1 Main Report, Nanyang University, Singapore and International Development Research Centre, Canada
Malaysia, Department of Statistics Malaysia (Sarawak Branch), (1994), Yearbook of Statistics 1993, Sarawak, Department of Statistics Malaysia (Sarawak Branch)

Shah, Ibrahim Abu and Ling Syawe Seh, I. (1993) `The Challenges of Bringing Quality Education o Rural Areas, Its Implications Towards Educational Management', Sarawak Gazette,
120(1524):9-18
Smith, J.D. (1981), Transport Technology and Employment in Rural Malaysia, ILO: Geneva, described in Barwell et al. (1985), Rural Transport in Developing Countries, Study prepared for ILO, Intermediate Technology Publications: London 21
Tan, Chee Beng (1993), `Education in Rural Sarawak' Borneo Review, 4(2):128-141