Plan to turn Memorial into tourist attraction
Published on: Tuesday, January 22, 2019
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KOTA KINABALU:
The State Tourism, Culture and Environment Ministry plans to turn the Petagas War Memorial into a historical site and another tourism hotspot in the city.
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Its Minister, Datuk Christina Liew, wants her Tourism Department to do a study on the matter.
“Kundasang and Labuan they have their respective sites for commemorating our unsung heroes. I would like to study whether we can also turn this site.
“I believe we can do it, because it is also quite near to the city. I am going to bring this up in my Ministry,” said Liew, who is also Deputy Chief Minister when met after she represented the Chief Minister leading in commemorating war victims at the memorial Monday.
The Petagas War Memorial is only one of two such sites in the world where a memorial was built over the exact spot where the remains of the fallen lay buried. The other is Pearl Harbour in Hawaii, which the Japanese attacked on Dec. 7, 1941.
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Among those who lay buried at Petagas is Albert Kwok, a Sarawakian who led the guerrillas. Kwok and five ring leaders were beheaded while 170 others were machine-gunned to death by the Japanese.
Another 131 were sent to Labuan and of these only 11 survived.
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Meanwhile, Liew rubbished a state activist’s claims that the Sabah cabinet could be unconstitutional as it has more than 10 ministries, contrary to requirements under the Sabah Constitution.
Liew said Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal was aware of what was happening when he appointed his cabinet ministers on May 16, last year.
“We will let the Attorney-General study but I don’t believe it’s unconstitutional… I don’t want to use the strong word ‘rubbish’ but I think it is rubbish,” she said.
Activist Zainnal Ajamain told Free Malaysia Today (FMT) that under Article 6(2) of the Sabah Constitution, the state cabinet shall consist of a chief minister and not more than 10, nor less than four ministers.
Zainal had questioned whether the establishment of the Law and Native Affairs Ministry — an 11th post in the state cabinet — was a breach of the Constitution.
Shafie, after taking over the state government, had replaced the Resource Development and Information Technology Ministry with the Education and Innovation Ministry, while the Community Development and Consumer Affairs Ministry was replaced with the Health and People’s Wellbeing Ministry.
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