KUALA LUMPUR, March 30 — DAP national chairman Lim Guan Eng today pointed out that under the current government’s administration, Sabah has received less development allocation under the yearly national budget as compared to during Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) tenure in 2020.
The Bagan MP said that the current administration has chosen to ignore the voices of the people of Sabah by only allocating RM345 million — or 0.1 per cent — from Budget 2022, which is RM332 billion in total.
“In other words, Sabah was worse off in receiving 6.9 per cent of development expenditure under the 2022 Budget as compared to 9.3 per cent under PH’s 2020 Budget.
“If Sabah were to be given the same 9.3 per cent of development expenditure that PH had provided for in the 2022 Budget, then Sabah should be receiving RM7 billion, not RM5.2 billion,” he said in a statement.
Lim then suggested that Sabah’s issues of inflation and rising prices can be mitigated with a Price Stabilisation Fund and by postponing the increase in electricity prices for commercial users by as much as 20 per cent, opposing the withdrawal of tax exemptions on foreign-sourced income, opposing the increase in compound fines for Covid-19 breaches and opposing the increase in Bumiputera quota for large government procurement contracts.
“DAP does not object to the RM11.4 billion allocation for Bumis but urges more and fairer allocation for both Sabah, Sarawak and all Malaysians.
“Using racist or extremist sentiments in budget allocations will not help in saving lives and livelihoods of the poor and businesses, especially SMEs,” he said.
In 2020, the national budget under PH for Sabah was increased to RM5.2 billion in development funds, and also saw the doubling of the annual federal special grant for Sabah to RM53.4 million.
