Guan Eng: Harapan govt gave Sabah bigger slice of the pie

 

DAP chairperson Lim Guan Eng pointed out that Sabah received a higher percentage of allocation under the Budget when Pakatan Harapan was in power, compared to Budget 2022.

He said Sabah had received the highest allocation amongst all the states when Harapan was the federal government.

“There is no doubt that in percentage terms, Sabah and Sarawak received less under the Budget 2022 as compared to Harapan’s Budget 2020,” Lim said in a statement today.

While the overall development expenditure in Budget 2022 had been increased to RM75.6 billion from RM56 billion in Harapan’s Budget 2020, Lim pointed out that Sabah still received the same amount of RM5.2 billion for its development expenditure in the latest Budget as it did back in 2020.

“In other words, Sabah was worse off in receiving 6.9 percent of development expenditure under the Budget 2022 as compared to 9.3 percent under Harapan’s Budget 2020.

“If Sabah were to be given the same 9.3 percent of development expenditure in the Budget 2022 that Harapan had provided for it in Budget 2020, then Sabah should be receiving RM7 billion and not RM5.2 billion in Budget 2022,” he said.

More allocations

He said DAP is not against the RM11.4 billion allocation for the bumiputera community but there should be more and fairer allocations for Sabah, Sarawak as well as all Malaysians.

“The Budget 2022 ignores the unhappiness of non-bumiputeras that despite making up 30 percent of the population, they received only RM345 million or 0.1 percent of the Budget 2022 of RM332 billion.

“Using racist or extremist sentiments in Budget allocations will not help in saving lives and livelihood of the poor and businesses, especially SMEs,” Lim said.

He also brought up the question of fairness and competitiveness with the unilateral increase of the bumiputera quota for large government procurement contracts from 30 percent to 61 percent without any consultation.

“Furthermore, Sabah and Sarawak benefit little from the bumiputera quota, raising further questions of justice to bumiputeras in Sabah and Sarawak,” he said.

During the debates on Budget 2022 in the Dewan Rakyat, Sabahan MPs such as Keningau MP Jeffrey Kitingan and Sepanggar MP Azis Jamman had raised their dissatisfaction with the insufficient allocation for Sabah and Sarawak -Mkini