It's Early Christmas for Daily Express

Today's popular news: Party-mood Young Tigers mauled by Syria.

Wrong! I am a football crazy but this time it's the smaller prints that did it for me.

My copy of the Daily Express - 24 November 2011

Alright, I admit it. That headline Syria Spoil the party caught my attention. It is a summary of the sad truth about our junior football team Young Tigers, Harimau Muda. They won the SEA GAMES football tourney barely 2 days ago and I bet many of the players are still celebrating as Syria put two goals into their net.

..and it is so important that I circled the word "Sport" on the top left-hand corner.

Not quite. Look closely at the enlarged image below.

See it? Yes, it's the date. According to Daily Express it is Christmas eve already. This image is not doctored and you can check your copy if you still have it.

Okay, so, today is 24th December 2011. Pssstt!! It was actually my wife who spotted the small error and I suggested 2412 should be a lucky number for today. LOL

Moving on. Buoyed by our 'massive discovery' and believing that we would make it to the history book, we combed the papers for more golds and true enough we found one in the Bahasa Melayu section.

Here:

Segmen Sukan Harian Express



Khamis 23 November 2011? Hari Khamis bukan 24 haribulan kah?

This is nothing less than bad but I still prefer the 24-December-2011 blip. I really should now start wishing people Merry Christmas.

Sembang kosong kopi-o saja. Jangan marah.

Free Garbage Bins

ALOR SETAR, 19 NOVEMBER, 2011: Three million households that have settled their house assessments will be presented with free garbage bins on wheels until August 2014, said Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Seri Chor Chee Heung.

He said the bins would be supplied by three companies that had been awarded contracts for garbage and solid waste collection in Kedah, Perlis, Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, Pahang, Negeri Sembilan, Melaka and Johor.

Distribution of the bins would first be carried out in the state capitals followed by municipal council and district council areas, he said.

Read more about it at New Strait Times and New Sabah Times....

This covers only 7 out of 14 states in Malaysia and unfortunately Sabah has not move yet to that direction.

I took the following shot not too long ago at Tanjung Lipat seafront and it is not difficult to see that we in Kota Kinabalu have very low awareness of cleanliness and we don't seem to care much about how this will impact our well-being, today or in future.

Sandy beach? maybe not.

Back to the topic, no doubt it would be nice to get free bins but the guys running the show should also ensure regular collection of rubbish. The place where we stay falls under the local government rating area where households pay for certain maintenance services fee and this covers garbage collection. As it is now, the collection is not on regular basis and one needs to call the municipal office numerous time before someone comes to do the job.

What's going on in Peninsula Malaysia is a proactive initiative by Minister Datuk Chor, and if done in the most proper way I believe these states will benefit from the participation of the private sector.

Can we do the same for Kota Kinabalu (for a start) and other main towns in Sabah later?

What happened to the short-lived privatised solid waste management services in Kota Kinabalu is a good example of a mis-management on the part of whoever. In other words it was a loop-sided deal.

Come on! We can do better than a biased agreement. We are all smart people, aren't we?

Pungut bah buanglah sampah tu!

Sabah Budget 2012 - Updated

This is an update to the earlier entry posted on 17th November 2012, prior to the tabling of the state budget, titled Sabah Budget 2012. I mentioned that the state government would table a RM3.4 bil budget, an increase of 11% compared to the previous figure. It appeared to be an underestimation as the CM announced the biggest ever budget of RM4.048 billion later that afternoon.

The following Table shows Sabah's historical budget figures tabled by Chief Minister Datuk Musa Aman who is also the State Finance Minister:

Budget 2012 was tabled by CM on 18th November 2011

Sources:
1) The 2009 Budget Speech
2) The 2011 Budget Speech
3) Daily Express
4) The Star Online - for 2010 data.

Where will this RM4.048 bil expenses go to? view source

1) Salaries + administrative expenses
2) Infrastructure - RM1.3 bil
3) Supply of clean water - RM459 mil
4) Roads - RM271 mil
4) Sewage treatment - RM64 mil
5) Agriculture - RM336 mil
6) Tourism - RM159 mil
7) Bringing riches to the village poor - RM169 mil (whatever that means)
8) Training (jobs, scholarships, professional/vocational) - RM204 mil
9) New township and housing - RM123 mil
10) ICT (e-constituency portal, e-community, e-Desa) - RM72 mil

If the figures don't add up, don't blame your mathematics teacher, blame the rain instead.

Biggest ever spending there but it is necessary for continual development of Sabah.