No discrimination in budget allocation for states – Treasury
KOTA KINABALU: The federal government does not discriminate against any states in budget allocation, said Treasury Secretary-General Tan Sri Dr Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah.
He said the government worked with the state Economic Planning Units (EPU) in budget evaluation to determine the priorities for each state.
“Education and health are the top priorities for any state.”
Mohd Irwan said this in response to a public works officer's questions on allocation to Sabah, funds for road maintenance and public transportation issues during the question and answer session after the former delivered a keynote address to 1,000 civil servants at the Sabah Federal Government Administration Complex here yesterday.
He said the federal government has been providing huge sums of allocation to Sabah.
He added that the landscape of Sabah was going to be different in the next five years.
“We are going to build a gas pipeline from Kimanis to Sandakan.”
Additionally, he said a power plant would be built in Sandakan to resolve the shortage of power supply in the east coast of Sabah.
He said uninterrupted power supply was needed to attract industries and investments.
He disclosed that the subject of Light Rail Transit (LRT) was also discussed in the Economic Council meeting but he said to wait for the Prime Minister to say on this matter.
Furthermore, he said the Tanjung Aru Eco Development (TAED) project when realized would be even better than the Palm Beach Resort in Dubai.
“People from all over the world are going to buy their residence here.
“This will stimulate the economy and Sabah is going to be one the major cities in Malaysia in terms of attraction.”
Mohd Irwan said Sabah was advancing faster than the peninsula now with more and more seafront developments such as the Jesselton Mall, Suria Sabah and other projects.
He said this provided employment opportunities to locals without them having to migrate to West Malaysia or Singapore for jobs.