State Budget 2018 devtbiased, says Dr Sim

THE state Budget 2018 demonstrates the state government’s commitment in continuing with the late Pehin Sri Adenan Satem’s developmentbiased agenda.

Local Government Minister Datuk Dr Sim Kui Hian said the focus was still rural development, which is important to achieve inclusiveness.

“The Budget places attention to the transformation of Sarawak’s economy which is broad-based, heading towards the digital economy and most importantly creating other sources of revenue apart from the existing oil and gas,” he told reporters at the end of the morning session of the DUN Sitting yesterday.

Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg, when tabling the Supply (2018) Bill, 2017 said the state Budget 2018 would continue to be development-biased with 70 per cent of the RM8.226 billion-budget proposed for development.

Under the 2018 Budget proposal, RM5.745 billion or about 70 per cent of the total budget, is proposed for development while RM2.481 billion or 30 per cent is proposed for operating expenditure.

Abang Johari said Sarawak, as a developing state, has to continue with a development-biased budget to stimulate the desirable level of economic activities and sustain economic growth during the year.

Dr Sim, who is Batu Kawah assemblyman, said those were key components crucial for Sarawak to achieve greater financial autonomy.

“You can see that the development budget is the largest of any other state budgets in Malaysia, with Selangor and Penang having a big deficit. We continue to have big reserve of more than RM30 billion compared to Penang and Selangor whose reserves are only a fraction of ours. Their deficit is so big that I don’t know how they are going to manage eventually,” he added.

Dr Sim was hopeful that next year’s budget could see a surplus as the state government passed a deficit budget for the first time last year.

“By this year, we could see a balance, surplus budget. Hence, we hope the implementation can be executed smoothly,” he added.