 DAP has branded the Eastern Sabah Security Command (Esscom) as a "costly April Fool's joke", a day after a minister as well as MPs had castigated the security arrangements in the east coast of Sabah, following the latest abduction of two women by gunmen from a resort off Semporna last week.DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang said Esscom was set up in April 1 last year and the kidnapping took place hours after it celebrated its anniversary. "It is a white elephant. It has given Sabah and Malaysia a false sense of security. What's the use of having it when it is so useless?" he said at a press conference at the parliament lobby today. Esscom covers 1,400km of the east coast of Sabah from Kudat to Tawau. It was established in March last year by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak following the Lahad Datu incursion by armed Sulu militants. Its purpose is to strengthen maritime security in the eastern part of Sabah and to prevent terrorist activities in the waters off Sabah. Lim said the Cabinet has to meet tomorrow to discuss revamping Esscom. "There is no point to the deputy prime minister ordering the security command to intensify its efforts because under its present structure, it is clearly a white elephant. "The director-general must be given full powers to act regardless whether he is from Sabah or a civilian," he said. Esscom had admitted recently it is "powerless", saying that it has no power over the 10 districts in the Eastern Sabah Safety Zone (Esszone) and that it was under police jurisdiction. Jimmy Wong (DAP-Kota Kinabalu) said full commanding power should be given to Esscom and the relevant military authorities in the security body to safeguard the Borneo state's east coast borders. "In the past 10 years, intrusions are mostly in eastern Sabah and allocation of armies and troops should be beefed up to improve the defence in the east coast," he said. Citing a written reply from Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim in which he said the possibility of intrusions was low, Wong said the answer was "ridiculous" and "absurd", as it was given on April 7, five days after the abuduction. In the parliamentary reply, the minister in the prime minister's department had said the possibility of a intrusion like the Sulu terrorist intrusion in Lahad Datu was low. He also said both locals and tourists are confident over the security status in the Esszone. Stephen Wong (DAP-Sandakan) said the large number of illegal foreigners in the Sabah was compromising the state's security. "If the government is serious in improving security, they have to address the problem of illegals and stop issuing identity cards easily," he said. Two women, identified as 29-year-old tourist Gao Hua Yun from Shanghai and a Filipino resort worker Marcy Darawan @ Mimi, were abducted from the Singamata Reef Resort on April 2. The latest kidnapping incident comes on the heels of a string of kidnapping incidents last year, including two cases involving fishermen on their boats in April and November, as well as the kidnapping of a Taiwanese tourist from Pom-Pom Island, also in November. Tourism minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz yesteday criticised the security in Sabah, branding it “unsatisfactory" while Datuk Seri Abdul Ghapur Salleh (BN-Kalabakan) has suggested security efforts in the area should come under either the home or defence ministry. – April 9, 2014. TMI
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