KUALA TERENGGANU, Nov 27 — Terengganu has so far this year attracted investments worth RM3.59 billion from 21 sectors, with the manufacturing sector contributing the most, the State Assembly was told.
State Trade, Industrial, Regional Development and Administrative Wellbeing Committee chairman Datuk Tengku Hassan Tengku Omar said in the manufacturing sector alone, 12 companies were already operating in Terengganu, while the same goes for other sectors such as tourism, agriculture and services.
“Next year, we will be providing 10 lots (industrial sites) for the timber-based industry in Wakaf Tapai, as some companies have pledged to invest in this industry.
“The investors have created 18,853 jobs for locals from January 2018 until October this year,” he said when winding up debate on the Terengganu 2020 Budget at the State Assembly here today.
Tengku Hassan said 9,147 jobs were created in 2018, and while 9,706 jobs were provided until October this year.
He said the state government is living up to its promise of providing 20,000 jobs in four years as stipulated in the 14th general election (GE14) manifesto, and it has so far achieved 94.3 per cent of the target.
“We nearly fulfilled our manifesto. There are 1,147 more jobs to create. We will not stop at this and will continue to do our level best to create jobs for locals,” he said.
Meanwhile, State Welfare, Women and Family Development, and National Unity Committee chairman Hanafiah Mat said the flood relief preparations were already underway as planned.
The total allocation provided by the state government for this year’s floods is RM1 million besides RM413,500 from the federal government.
A total of 1,062 civil servants and psychological volunteers will be mobilised for flood relief operations, he said, adding that the personnel are from the Welfare Department, Education Department, National Population and Family Development Board, and Health Department,” he said.
State Tourism, Culture and Information Technology Committee chairman Ariffin Deraman said only 51 of the 362 executive information officers (EIOs) and technical support officers (TSOs) had their contracts terminated so far.
“The remaining 311 officers are still working in government departments and schools in Terengganu.
“The EIOs and TSOs, who are under the supervision of the State Information Management Unit, were recruited by the previous government (Barisan Nasional) to work on projects for bestari.com and e-Book smart application for primary school students in 2009.
“But after the programmes were shelved in 2015, they were absorbed by other departments. A study showed that 51 of them were no longer involved in information technology-related works, while the remaining 311 will be given skills training from time to time,” he said. — Bernama
