Sawai Anak Tahir is a flagman and he is loving it.
The 58-year-old Bidayuh living in the western coastal town of Sematan, Sarawak, used to make a living as a farmer, earning a meagre RM900 per month.
But the biggest new thing that is reshaping his community and even the state has slowly changed his life.
The Sarawak stretch of the 1,089km Pan-Borneo Highway starts from Telok Melano near Sematan right to Merapok in Lawas on the opposite end of the state bordering Sabah.
The game-changing project is delivering an early windfall for Sawai, the father of five, and tens of
thousands of ordinary people in the state.
He told me his monthly income has nearly doubled to RM1,700 (excluding overtime) by helping to direct traffic flow near the construction site in Kampung Pueh near Sematan.
The coastal town of Sematan is a good two-hour drive westward of Kuching, some 100km away. It is a pretty remote place, with villagers tending to oil palm estates or working as coastal fishermen.
At the construction site near Kampung Pueh, workers in yellow hard hats and orange vests brave tough terrain and wet weather to complete the highway in four years by the 2019 deadline.
However, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, on a visit to Lundu near Sematan last Friday, set a new deadline for the completion of the 32.7km Telok Melano-Sematan stretch.
He said the project, which includes the construction of six bridges, should be completed by the end of 2018, months ahead of schedule.
Najib is the prime mover of the Pan-Borneo Highway project, which stretches up to Serudong in Sabah, making it a 2,300km-long mostly dual-carriageway road.
He was on a half-day visit to Lundu in the Tanjong Datu state seat. The Barisan Nasional is locked in a three-cornered fight in the Feb 18 by-election, called following the death of chief minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem, who had held the seat since 2006.
It is a foregone conclusion that the BN will easily retain the seat, given it is a BN stronghold and the candidacy of Adenan’s widow, Puan Sri Jamilah Anu.
BN campaigners say the only thing uncertain is the percentage of voter turnout to ensure a stronger BN win among the 9,959 eligible voters.
In the last state election, Adenan won by a sizeable 5,892-vote majority, with the sole candidate from PKR losing his deposit.
Jamilah is facing candidates from Sarawak Reform Party and Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak Baru.
This by-election is also seen as a crucial test for Adenan’s successor, Datuk Amar Abang Johari Abang Openg, in implementing many of Adenan’s legacies, including building the highway to Telok Melano.
Telok Melano, which borders Indonesia, has, until today, no proper road links with the rest of Sarawak.
The original plan was to build the Pan-Borneo Highway from Sematan to Miri but Adenan had requested Najib to start it from Telok Melano.
This cost the government an extra RM580 million, Works Minister Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof said.
“So this is the legacy left by Tok Nan,” he said. Residents in Telok Melano now have to take boats to get to Sematan and beyond.
Yesterday was exactly a month since Adenan passed away.
Abang Jo has so far said and done the right things since he assumed office. He has also struck a positive chord with Najib and his deputy, Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.
Both Najib and Abang Jo have also reminded Sarawakians that their fathers signed the 1963 Malaysia Agreement when they were in office, a gesture that would probably go down well with locals.
“It is our duty as the sons of the signatories that the spirit of our (late) fathers is as what they intended and wanted it to be,” Najib said.
Najib, somehow, is very much at home in Sarawak. He has visited the state 52 times since he came into power in 2009, more than his five predecessors combined.
He took to Twitter on Friday night to say that he had been reminded by Sarawak leaders of his 52nd visit last week. He promised to ensure Sarawak continued to develop from the close federal-state ties.
For the folk in Tanjong Datu, the prospects of multimillion-ringgit infrastructure spending, including water and electricity supplies, could mean better income and a higher living standard.
A veteran newsman, A Jalil Hamid believes that a good journalist should be curious and sceptical at the same time