Sarawak to balance its savings, investments — CM

KUCHING: The state government will continue to balance its investments and savings in an effort to speed up its development.

Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg said the state was fortunate that due to the financial prudence of his predecessors, Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahud and also the late Pehin Sri Adenan Satem, Sarawak has a substantial amount of reserves.

He acknowledged that a big reserve was good but too big a reserve was also not good because the money should be used to invest and boost domestic consumption.

“Economists know that if we don’t use our reserves to invest, it is also costs which are called opportunity costs, meaning cost of lost opportunities because we do nothing with our money.

“Opportunity costs do not appear on the account books but it is important in the process of decision making.

“What I mean to say is that there is a need to ensure a balance between our reserves and our investment without depleting our reserves and this is the primary role of the Development Bank of Sarawak (DBOS),” he said at the official launching of DBOS here yesterday.

He noted that moreover, the state’s money is parked in various banks which will charge the state interests if it borrows from them.

“Borrowing money from the banks with our money inside and being charged interests sound stupid,” he added.

Abang Johari believed that Sarawak needs to come up with a new model that will help the state to raise funds to finance strategic development projects.

He noted that one glaring case in point was the deplorable condition of more than 1000 schools in Sarawak, mostly in the rural areas which are in urgent need of repair and rebuilding.

This issue, he said, was not new and Sarawak had been waiting for years to solve the issue.

“We cannot moan and blame others all the time but we have to take the necessary action on our own although education is a federal matter, for the benefit of our students and teachers.

“I believe that all of us are aware now that the federal government in the 2018 budget has allocated RM1 billion to finance the repair and rebuilding of these schools.

“Thank you to the Prime Minister but if this is not enough, Sarawak would want to make sure that more funds are coming from Putrajaya or through DBOS which, of course, will have to be reimbursed later by the Federal Government,” he said.

The Chief Minister pointed out that there were a number of strategic projects that the state wanted to venture into to expedite development in Sarawak that would be financed with resources through DBOS.

He said the West is slowly moving away from fossil fuel powered vehicles and public transportation towards non-emission vehicles on their roads and railways while electric-powered vehicles are the favourite choice.

However, he noted that hydrogen gas-powered vehicles were making inroads in Europe, America, Canada and elsewhere.

“In light of this development, besides generating hydropower, we can see that we have vast potentials in our water resources to produce hydrogen gas that one day we may be able to export.

“I believe that this is not a farfetched idea as we have already exported liquefied natural gas to various countries.”

He noted that hydrogen can also be liquefied, kept under pressure in bottles and exported much in the same way as cooking gas if there is a market for it.

He disclosed that Sarawak is going to set up a Hydrogen Unit in Sarawak Energy to explore this possibility.