KUCHING, July 8 — Sarawak Premier Tan Sri Abang Johari Openg today said he has approved an allocation for the construction of the Borneo Astronomy Centre here.
He said the centre will encourage more research on astronomy, which could be shared with universities.
“I dare to approve the allocation because our revenue had increased substantially last year,” he said at the opening of the Astronomy Carnival here, without going into details on the amount of allocation and when the centre will be built.
“Our state revenue for this year will also increase substantially based on the figure that I have, but I will not share it with you just yet. Let me explore it first,” said Abang Johari, who is also the state’s finance and new economy minister.
“Our revenue for the first half of this year can be said to be not bad,” he said, adding there is another six more months to go for this year.
He said the revenue that the state earns will be given back to the people so they will have high household income.
“If the state has high income and the people do not benefit from it, then it is meaningless.
“We have the instruments to redistribute the wealth, including through imposition of taxes on those who earn extra huge profits that they have to give back to the people, and secondly, it is the responsibility of the government to have a policy that will uplift the income of the people,” the premier said.
He stressed that those with talents will benefit more from the government policy.
“But at least, the policy that I bring and the implementation of the Post-Covid-19 Development Strategy 2030 (PCDS 2030), there is light shining on us,” he said, adding that the World Bank has already classified Sarawak as a high income state.
