Najib ‘misguided’ on Sabah’s needs

What's the point of waiving school fees and issuing book vouchers if students have to walk 30 kilometers to get to school in Sabah?

KOTA KINABALU: Accessibility to a decent secondary education is still a perennial problem in Sabah and the Budget 2012 has given little consideration to this fact, according to Sabah opposition PKR.

Lamenting over Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s ‘misguided and wasterful’ 2012 budget, Sabah PKR secretary Dr Roland Chia said the whole budget had not taken into consideration the real needs of Sabah.

“Of what use is waiving school fees and handing out book vouchers for rural students in Sabah if students in the rural poor have to travel or walk 20-30 kilometers just to get to the nearest school.

“The government should provide community buses to solve these problems instead. Transportation is a huge cost in Sabah. It is a problem even in urban areas where taxi fares remained as one of the highest in the country.

“Both taxi drivers and car owners complain of unavailability of NGV (liquid petroleum) facilities for both taxis and private vehicles users,” Chia said.

He is also lambasted the plan for more mega development projects in already ‘heavily’ developed Peninsular Malaysia.

“What was extremely disappointing is the announcement of more mega projects such as the Coastal Highway JB-Nusa and the Taiping Heritage Tourism Project at a cost of RM978 million.

“What is the need for such projects which would certainly go into cost over-runs when Sabah is in dire need of basic infrastructure.

“There is still a big vacuum in the basic infrastructure facilities in Sabah…we don’t even have proper roads and utilities.

“There is also a big economic gap between the urban middle class and the rural poor in Sabah. There are not enough planned measures in terms of poverty eradication and closing the gap between the rural and urban population.

“The government needs to spell out how is the RM5 billion going to address the perennial poverty in Sabah,” he said alluding to the fact that Sabah is the second poorest state in Malaysia despite it being the fourth largest producer of oil and gas in the country.

On the road to bankruptcy

Chia was commenting on Najib’s, who is also finance minister, announcement of an unprecedented RM232.8 billion national budget for 2012 last Friday.

The ‘feel good’ budget however is worrying Chia.

“RM232 billion is a lot of money, especially when we are looking at a 9.4% rise in expenditure and this contradicts the statement that the rise of expenditure will reduce the country’s deficit of 4.7% from 5.4% of GDP.

“How this is going to be achieved is yet to be seen,” Chia said.

Meanwhile the sheer size of the budget has also drawn flak from other opposition groups, with Sarawak DAP declaring that the ruling Barisan Nasional government had ignored the state despite its rural areas being touted as the coalition’s ‘fixed deposit’.

Said Sarawak DAP secretary Chong Chieng Jen: “For the past 14 years, the nation has (accumulated) a total deficit amounting to more than RM436 billion.

“The next year’s budget has lot of goodies. We expect to incur RM45 billion deficit, and if you add this, our deficit will easily come to RM500 billion.

“This will be more than 50% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product). We are heading towards the same direction as Greece.

“Greece went bankrupt when its deficits reached 67% of its GDP.”