KOTA KINABALU: The kidnapping of a Chinese tourist and a Filipino hotel worker in Semporna reflects the serious weakness of the country’s security system despite having spent hundreds of millions in setting up Eastern Sabah Security Command (ESSCom), said former Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk VK Liew.
He said our security was easily compromised and it had not improved since the last abduction at Pom Pom Resort barely six months ago.
“We are not seeing effective measures in place despite all these talks of having set up checkpoints with sophisticated assets to track down intrusion,” said Liew, who is also the former Sandakan member of parliament.
“Surely heads have to roll. There has to be responsibility,” he said in a statement yesterday.
“More often than not, we hear excuses from top government officials that Sabah has a vast coast and we have limited capacity to guard our waters.
“That is a recognised fact and indisputable; the question is, what is the government going to do about it? How are we going to put up a system to safeguard our security over such vast coastal areas?
“We can’t simply just give excuses and give elaborate but insignificant explanation each time when an incident like this happened. There is solution given to this lapse of security,” he added.
Liew said it is time for the government to set up a comprehensive Coast Guard command that protects us from threats delivered by sea by the neighbouring insurgents, where daily operations unit be set up to patrol the seas along the eastern regions. This will not only safeguard any form of intrusion but it can combat illicit smuggling, the rampant fish bombing and other dangerous activities on the high seas.
“The government must act quickly and swiftly. We cannot afford another breach to our security,” he said.