Where are the Dayak top leaders support?

  Dusit (centre) together with DBNA’s deputy president Yunus Apok
(second left), SDGA’s deputy president Noelle Lily Morse
 (second right), BGA’s secretary Ani Solep (right) and OUNA’s
representative Ungan Lisut.

WHY only a handful Dayaks top political leaders (ministers and the people representatives) had come forward in support to have more Dayaks in the civil service?

This was the question raised by the Sarawak Dayak Graduates Association (SDGA) president Dr Dusit Jaul who is heading a special committee on the Dayaks serving in the Federal public civil service.

The committee is represented by various Dayak non-governmental organisations (NGO) like Sarawak Dayak National Union (SDNU), Dayak Bidayuh National Association (DBNA), Orang Ulu National Association (OUNA), Sarawak Dayak Graduates Association (SDGA) and Bidayuh Graduates Association (BGA).

Dusit said so far only four Dayak leaders had responded to the committee’s call for more Dayaks to serve in the Federal public civil service — PRS president Tan Sri Dr James Masing, SPDP president Tan Sri William Mawan Ikom, PRS deputy president Datuk Joseph Entulu and Kanowit MP Datuk Aaron Dagang who raised the issue in Parliament recently.

Dusit said Masing has brought the issue to chief secretary-general of State while Mawan launched the outreach programme in Pakan and Entulu launched a similar programme in Nanga Skuan, Selangau.

“Hopefully more of our Dayak leaders will come forward in support of the programme while the committee would like to thank those Dayak leaders who had come forward to assist us in the programme, adding that a  concerted effort should be done to get more young Dayaks to apply to enter the civil service.

Sarawak Dayak Graduates Association (SDGA) president Dr Dusit Jaul, who is heading a special committee formed to help Dayak youths to serve in the Federal civil service, said he found it strange why only a handful had come forward in support of the programme.

“Hopefully, more Dayak leaders will support the programme which is the way forward in working together towards a common cause.”

The special committee is represented by several leading Dayak-based non-governmental organisations (NGOs), including Sarawak Dayak National Union (SDNU), Dayak Bidayuh National Association (DBNA), Orang Ulu National Association (OUNA), Sarawak Dayak Graduates Association (SDGA) and Bidayuh Graduates Association (BGA).

Dusit said there should not be race favouritism in the distribution of jobs in the civil service.

He said the selection of candidates should be based on merit. Although he did not mention any specific race, Dusit wanted PSC and the Government to be fair to the Dayak community.

On career development, Dusit said: “Getting a job is one thing but do Dayaks in the government service get their fair share of career development (promotion) in the Federal government departments and agencies?

“This is also the Dayak plight which the Government should also look into, after all the Government has been talking about merit. They should walk the talk.”

According to Dusit, there is much frustration among the Dayaks in the civil service because they have been denied promotion opportunities despite possessing the required qualifications, skills and capabilities.

On the online application, he said there was no telling if applications were getting fair treatment from PSC.

Dusit said because of this uncertainty and doubt, the special committee would be coordinating closely with PSC on the issue.

“We will monitor the implementation after the job application stage. The Dayak community wants to see results.”

On the existence of “little Napoleans” who might try to sabotage the applications made to PSC, Dusit said: “We trust PSC and the Government to be more transparent. Let them do their jobs first, we will act later if we discover something is not right in the process.”

According to Dusit, every year about 50,000 vacancies of all grades in the Federal departments and agencies under the Federal PSC for those 41 and below, would invite applications.

“If the Government just gives the Dayaks (Iban, Bidayuh and Orang Ulu) 4% of the 50,000 every year (1,500 a year) that will be good enough.

“To me, as the president of the Sarawak Dayak Graduates Association, the issue of low intake of Dayaks in the civil service shouldn’t have arisen in the first place because we Dayaks have helped in the formation of Malaysia.

“This is a lesson where community engagement is crucial towards fairness and justice. We are not demanding more than what is due to us. We just want fair treatment,” he added.

On the need for the programme, Dusit said online application was a huge disadvantage to Dayaks.

“Most of our people are in the rural areas where Internet access is either poor or the technology does not yet exist. Yet PSC only accepts online applications.

“The other reason is the difficulty in accessing PSC website and lack of awareness among the Dayak youths on how to go about applying for government jobs online.

“In our random survey, many Dayak Form 5 school-leavers don’t even know what SPA stands for and they are also unaware of SPA’s function,” he said.

Dusit also said some Dayak youths were sceptical about applying for jobs in the civil service after so many of their applications went unanswered.

“Yes, they applied. They spent money renting computers at cyber cafes after travelling for hours from their kampung in the far-flung interior to reach town.

“Then what happened was that, there wasn’t even a single reply from PSC. Not even telling them if their applications were being looked into, let alone being called for interviews,” Dusit explained.

According to him, the special committee now has outreach schedules at 17 locations in Dayak majority areas throughout the state to help the Dayak youths with their applications.

Dusit said the Dayak NGOs involved in the programme were taking their own initiative with their own money and manpower to organise the online application programme.

“We are operating on very limited resources,” he said adding that until September, the committee had helped with 26,000 applicants.

On the challenge — to get 100,000 Dayak youths to apply — thrown by PSC chairman Tan Sri Mahmood Adam, Dusit said it was a figure for the committee to work on.

“If we can get another 10,000 by end of the year, we will have been successful. The main thing is we want to see many more Dayak youths accessing the PSC website and learning to apply for jobs online as compared to before now,” Dusit said.

He said going forward, the special committee would continue with the process of engagement with the relevant commissions including the State PSC, Education Service Commission, Legal and Judical Service Commission, the police and army.

He said annually there were about 400,000 intakes of teachers under purview of the Education Service Commission, Royal Malaysian Police (100,000), Malaysian Armed Forces (100,000) and State PSC (100,000).

Others are Legal and Judicial Service Commission and jobs under the various government statutory bodies like the Pepper Marketing Board, Malaysian Cocoa Board, Mardi, Felda, Felcra, Salcra and local authorities which are not under the purview of the Federal PSC.

A team of PSC officers was at the DBNA headquarters recently for the training of trainers to DBNA and BGA volunteers who will be assigned to the outreach programme.
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Dayaks versus Public Service Commission

By ROBERT KENNETH

THE deadline is December 31, 2012 and with roughly a month left, will there be at least 100,000 Dayak job applications submitted to the Public Service Commission (PSC) of Malaysia before the year is over?

The Dayaks were challenged last October 10 by the commission chairman Tan Sri Mahmood Adam to reach the figure following complaints that there are so few Dayak government servants.

The point of contention is that the number of Dayaks in the civil service has for many years been disproportionate to their size as the biggest ethnic group in Sarawak.

As soon as Mahmood issued his challenge, doubters immediately came out of the woodwork, and despite the seriousness of the issue, some Dayak politicians and intellectuals are sceptical, while others have even made jokes about the challenge.

There are those who say it is just “window dressing” and “lip service”, and the low number of applicants was just a convenient explanation for the disproportionately low number of Dayaks in the civil service.

A Bidayuh senior government officer, who requested anonymity, said even if Mahmood’s challenge was met, there was no guarantee that the number of successful Dayak applicants would be proportionate to their overall number.

“If it is true that there haven’t been enough Dayak applicants, then why were there many applicants who complained that they were rejected?” he said.

“According to PSC’s statistics, there were 16,578 Iban, 8,327 Bidayuh and 3,315 Orang Ulu applicants. But how come only 722 Ibans, 475 Bidayuhs and 96 Orang Ulus were selected? Why were so many rejected?

“Why should a smaller community get the most number of jobs just because it has the most number of applicants?”

He also asked whether there was any certainty that online applications would reach the PSC, adding that there were bound to be some “Little Napoleons” somewhere throwing their weight around.

Thus, he urged PSC to ensure that all applications are looked into and that all those from the right communities and with the right qualifications get the posts they apply for.

Meanwhile, several Dayak graduates said they were getting fed-up and losing hope of securing government jobs following several rejections and many years of waiting.

The Dayak Bidayuh National Association (DBNA) and Bidayuh Graduates Association (BGA), however, prefer responding positively to Mahmood’s challenge.

In order to help meet the target, they will hold a roadshow to encourage the Bidayuh to apply for government jobs.

BGA president Dr Ahi Sarok said the roadshow would start on Dec 1 at Bau Civic Centre for DBNA Bau and Serapi. This will be followed by DBNA Bunuk, Mambong and Anah Rais at Kampung Bunuk on Dec 2; Serian Community Hall on Dec 8 for DBNA Serian, Kedup, Tebedu and Balai Ringin; and at DBNA building in Kampung Jampari, Lundu on Dec 9.

Last night, representatives of the PSC had talks with DBNA and BGA exco members and showed them how applicants could apply for jobs online.

Following the meeting, a special committee comprising leaders representing various Dayak non-governmental organisations (NGOs) headed by Sarawak Dayak Graduates Association (SDGA) president Dr Dusit Jaul as interim chairman was formed.

The main task of the committee is to get as many Dayaks as possible to apply for jobs through the PSC to meet the 100,000-applicant challenge.

On Thursday, the committee also discussed with state PSC secretary Mohd Saiful Sungkih Abdullah ways of achieving the target within the short period.

Dusit said getting 100,000 applicants was not a big issue so long as Dayaks were willing to respond to the challenge.

He said the committee would do its best to reach out to eligible but unemployed youths in the rural areas — including private sector employees — to apply for positions in the public service.

“Dayak NGOs will assist the PSC as much as they can to encourage more Dayaks to submit their job applications,” Dusit said.

According to him, at the moment, Dayaks could not blame the PSC for the low number of their people in the public service because the records showed that despite being the most numerous in the state fewer Dayaks applied for government jobs compared to Malays and Chinese.

He revealed that up until last September, PSC’s records showed a total of 66,699 applications for various vacancies.

Of these, 26,233 or 39% were from Malays; Ibans (16,578), Bidayuhs (8,327), Melanaus (6,218), Chinese (5,062) and Orang Ulus (3,315).

From the total, 2,997 were selected — Malays (849), Ibans (722), Chinese (535), Bidayuhs (475), Melanaus (257) and Orang Ulus (96).

“Comparatively the number of Dayak applicants, particularly Ibans, is still very low relative to their total number as the biggest ethnic group in the state.

“If there were fewer applicants compared to those from other ethnic groups, naturally the number of those selected would be fewer. So if our people want to have more chances of being selected, this is the right time,” he said.

He said the committee would soon work out a mechanism on how to get the unemployed, self-employed and those in the private sector to apply for government jobs.

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Successful Sarawak River Festival

Huge turnout at the festival's concert.

Thousands including foreign tourists thronged Kampung Danu, along Puncak Borneo Road, 55km from Kuching to attend the inaugural Sarawak River  Festival 2012 held over the weekend of October 27 and 28.

Festival attendees enjoying their dancing. 

Organised by Ma’asa Event Management in collaboration with the Kampung Danu Development and Security Committee (JKKK), the two-day festival was held successfully and officially graced by Public Health Assistant Minister Dr Jerip Susil on October 28.

The festival was a combined activity of treasure hunt, water sports, live band performance and sale of food and beverages.




The festival kick-off on Saturday night (October 27) with live band performance by Dirgahayu II Band and the pack crowd were entertained and thrilled by songs from AF7 finalists Claudia Geres, a veteran Bidayuh singer Paul Kadun, Captain Miron Ganguly with his blues numbers, popular local DJ Peter John Apai and Hits FM DJ Aaron Gomes.

Some of the stalls set up during the two-day festival.

On Sunday morning participants of the Sarawak River Treasure Hunt 2012 were flag-off by JFAM Logistics Sdn Bhd managing director Jores Sidik at the riverbank of Kampung Bengoh.
Along their routes the treasure hunters had a thrilling and fun time hunting for the treasures hidden along the river, and each team were also required to pluck three types of edible plants along the river bank.
The hardest task was looking for the treasures hidden within the Kampung Danu vicinity.

Kampng Danu cultural troupe performing the Bidayuh cultural dance.

At the event site there were stalls selling food and beverages, handicrafts and cosmetics, while Maxis set up their stall to promote its services and Unimas Medical Centre gave free health screening to members of the public.

The Red Bull challenge was also a fun event. Hundreds of people rushed to look for 100 bottles of Red Bull drinks hidden within the vicinity of the village to win prizes offered  by Red Bull. ‘Gangnam Style’ and poco-poco dancing added merriments to the festival.

'Gangnam Style' dancing add fun to the festival.

The festival’s chief coordinator Robert Kenneth said due to unpredictable weather conditions some of events in this year’s festival were forced to be cancelled.

“It would have been better had the festival be held on the pebble field, but due to the heavy downpour on Sunday morning, and as we were worried of the high water level, all the activities except for the Sarawak River Treasure Hunt were held on land (in the village’s vicinity,” he said.




Overall it was a successful event and Robert promised a grander festival next year, which is slated to be held in August. Dr Jerip in his speech commended the organisation of the festival which he said as a very good way to promote the village to tourists and city dwellers. He commended Maasa Event Management for taking the initiative to organise the festival in Kampung Danu, whose beautiful has great potential of an important tourist destination and a perfect venue for community-based activities. He said all those tourist attractions like the river, caves, waterfall and the home stay is an asset to the villagers to generate income.

“If you work together to take care of the beauty of your village you can develop Kampung Danu as a popular tourist destination,” he added.

Dr Jerip handing over paints to Kampung Danu headman Encik Ahip Naii. The paints will be used to repaint the

village's suspension bridge.

Meanwhile Kampung Danu headman Ahip Naii who was delighted with the success of the festival had wanted Maasa Event Management to continue with the event next year. He said the festival has been able to attract huge number of visitors and had surely had benefited the village and promote the place as an interesting tourist destination.

Dr Jerip visiting Maxis boot during the festival.

“During the festival the villagers has been able to generate extra income by selling food and drinks as well as their farm produce to the visitors,” he added.

Meanwhile Maasa Event Management general manager Ceasser Robert announced that the company next event will be the Jungle Rock Muzik Festival scheduled in April next year at Maasa Event Centre located along the new road from Jalan Kampung Semadang to the Bengoh Resettlement Scheme in Penrissen.

Visitors reporting to participate in the Red Bull Challenge.

Dirgarhayu II female singers singing the dangdut numbers.

Among the visitors at the festival.

Participants of the Sarawak River Treasure Hunt 2012 ready for the the flag-off.

Participants of the treasure hunt pulling their kayaks at the 

shallow part of the river. 

Participants of the treasure hunt looking for the hidden treasures along 
the river. 

Visitors visiting the cultural house in Kampung Danu.

Participants of the treasure hunt  after the competition.

Peter John entertaining the visitors with his songs.

Participant of the treasure hunts on their way to Kampung Danu.

The crowd at the festival.

Encik Jores Sidik (second from left) presenting the prizes to the winners of
the Sarawak River Treasure Hunt.

Event director Robert Kenneth briefing the Sarawak River Treasure Hunt 

participants.

Winners of the treasure hunt carrying the treasures they collected.

Nestle event and sampling manager Tonny Merril presenting
the goodies to Maasa Event Management general manager,
Ceasser Robert  (left).

AF7 finalist Claudia Geres entertaining the crowd at the festival.

Visitors visiting the stalls at the festival.

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