Sabah needs budget to find business in Kalimantan, says economist

Political economist Firdausi Suffian.

KOTA KINABALU: A political economist has suggested that Putrajaya give Sabah a special budget to help the state profit from Indonesia’s relocation of its capital to Kalimantan.

Firdausi Suffian, who teaches at Sabah UiTM, told FMT the state needed to start building a relationship with the Indonesians so that it would be in a position to seize the economic opportunities presented when the relocation happens.

With the central government’s financial backing, he said, Sabah would be able to increase its credibility in negotiations with Indonesia.

“If you have a big brother behind you, you can show you are capable,” he said. “The chief minister can go there and say, ‘Look, we have these plans and a budget.’”

Such a special budget, he added, would also stir the interest of local businesses in opportunities available in Kalimantan.

Firdausi said he would also like to see proposals in the national budget that are aimed at addressing the high unemployment rate in Sabah.

“We need to develop downstream industries, and there needs to be a budget specifically for this. The more downstream industries you develop, the more job opportunities you create.”

According to him, 150,000 able bodied Sabahans, mostly youths, are jobless and the state’s unemployment rate is about 15% of the national figure.

He called for funds for the development of small and medium enterprises and said the state and federal governments needed to work closely to encourage certain industries to flourish so that the unemployment rate could be reduced.

He also said Sabah needed more money for infrastructure development than had been allocated in previous budgets.

“Even after 56 years of Malaysia’s formation, it’s sad that we are still talking about this,” he said. “We have the Pan Borneo Highway now, but we need more.”

He acknowledged that Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng recently said Sabah would get more funds for infrastructure development.

“But we’ll see,” he added.

He said education was one of the areas needing better infrastructure.

“If you look at the National Education Plan, they are talking about things like digitalisation and the Industrial 4.0 concept.

“These are fantastic ideas, but how do you achieve your aims if the enablers, which are the schools and associated infrastructure, are not there in the first place?

“There’s a huge gap between the urban and rural areas. In Kota Kinabalu, you have many advanced schools with all the technological equipment, but in the rural areas, schools are still dilapidated.”

He said the tourism sector also needed major infrastructural upgrades so that Sabah could continue to profit from it.

He also spoke of the need to address the issue of affordable housing, saying the special interest rate offered to buyers of houses costing less than RM150,000 was of no help to Sabahans because, according to the Khazanah Research Institute, houses in the state generally cost about RM186,000.

“Basically, it doesn’t really help in addressing the welfare of Sabahans. We need to look into this.” - FMT