Bintulu Member of Parliament, Dato' Seri Tiong King Sing said these individuals had been going around offering promises to the rural people of making quick monetary returns at the expense of their loyalty to the BN government.

"I appeal to the rural folks, especially the headmen, not to be easily influenced by this tactics as that could only give you short term satisfactions and probably long term sufferings," he said on Monday evening.

He made the remarks when closing a dialogue session in conjunction with a smart community programme organised by the Information Service Department at Rh Banyau, along Bintulu-Sebauh Road.

He was saddened that there were certain longhouse leaders who could be easily swept off their feet by the quick-gain tactics and to a certain extent, betraying the trusts placed on the people under their charges.

"On one day, these leaders would declare themselves were all for the Barisan Nasional but after seeing money being dangled in front of them, they changed their mind and forget about their own people and Barisan Nasional," lamented Tiong.

While stressing that Barisan Nasional had always maintain a forgiving stand, he said that the policy would not mean that everyone could betray the coalition and seeking forgiveness whenever they like.

"The forgiving stand would only applied after they had really proven their sincerity and solid loyalty to the Barisan Nasional," added Tiong.

Apart from emerging whenever elections are nearing in, he said that there were several instances in the pasts of headmen resorting to making quick money by endorsing illegal immigrants to obtain identity cards (ICs) or even selling off lands belonging to their own people without knowledge.

The Member of Parliament viewed such acts as sabotaging the government efforts to enable all eligible citizens in rural areas here to have ICs while leading rural people to lose their rightful lands without compensations.

He said the people should not allow leaders who cared more about themselves than their followers to carry on shouldering the responsibility as that could jeopardize the future of the next generation.

"Good leaders would always think about ensuring bright future for their people as if not them, who else could their people think would be able to help," he said.

Meanwhile, the rural folks were also reminded that Sarawak National Party (SNAP) is no longer in the Barisan Nasional and would not be allowed to use the party symbol as long as their legal case pertaining to their appeal against deregistration had not being settled.
 
Tiong also hoped that the longhouse people should now put a stop into harping the land issues as the Land and Survey Department had been making arrangements to conduct  registration of all the longhouses and lands being disputed.

"Let us allow the department to carry on to do their jobs and give our full cooperations to expedite the process," he added.

He also hoped that the longhouse folks would be voicing out their problems to him or any Barisan Nasional elected representatives instead of complaining to the oppositions.

"I would like the people to come out to tell me the problems that they are facing in their areas, not to come only when you want to have projects," he added.