Minister of Industrial Development Datuk Raymond Tan was urged to study the difficulties of business operators in Sabah before asking them to increase salary for their workers. Raymond’s statement to urge bosses to pay higher for the workers doesn’t hold any water, simply because he as the deputy head of the state government have not done enough to help the business operators in the state, claimed Chan Foong Hin, the Sabah DAP Deputy Chairman.
Chan spoken to media when commenting on the “cost of living” survey conducted by Sabah Today, as published in the Sabah Industry Quarterly (SIQ) magazine and announced by Raymond. According to the survey, a person needs a minimum income of RM3,000 a month in order to have a relatively comfortable life in Kota Kinabalu, but more than half of the people in the city are earning below RM2,500 a month, and RM 2,500 was the minimum amount needed by an individual working and living in the city just to break even every month.
“I totally don’t understand why did Raymond showing the survey result with a smiling face. In fact, he should feel shame over the failure of the state government in enhancing people’s income, with more than half of the population in the capital earn less than the minimum level of the “break even” salary therefore they can’t enjoy a decent lifestyle.” Chan said.
“The most ridiculous thing is, Raymond did play blame game, and taking all the business operators in the state as the scapegoat of the government’s failure. Don’t you know how difficult to run business in Sabah, Mr Raymond?”, asked Chan.
For instance, Raymond has urged the manufacturers to capitalise on the lower global fuel prices and weaker Malaysian Ringgit to boost exports, while state government has decided to do the opposite, by implementing 5% seafood export tax which is equivalent to punishing the industry player.
“Is this business friendly? Are we encouraging export or discouraging it?” Chan argued.
The Sri Tanjong Assemblyman took the Deputy Chief Minister to the task, by challenging him and the BN state administration for the following actions which are not only bringing benefits to the general but helping to shape a business friendly environment immediately:
- Reduce power tariff- Sabah should emulate Sarawak to reduce power tariff up to 40%.
- Ensuring consistent power supply and state government must commit to pay for the compensation to those experience unscheduled blackout.
- Reduce water tariff – it is not enough to stop increase water tariff but state government should reduce our water tariff from among the top in the country to among the average.
- Abolish privatisation of port and increase facility to support all the ports in the state to handle cargo and shipment easily.
- Expand the wifi network and upgrade the connectivity quality of surfing internet.
- Curb the house prices which is beyond affordable levels to the people by releasing some of state government;s land bank to developers via open tender,as is done by Singapore and Hong Kong to check unsustainable housing prices.
- Introduce efficient public transport system such as free shuttle bus for workers to travel from residence to working place.
- Negotiate with Federal government to expedite the construction of Pan Borneo Highway without sacrificing road standard.
- Demand the Federal government to defer GST implementation or demand to increase the GST threshold to RM2 million to ease the burden of small traders.
Negotiate with Federal government to liberalise cabotage policy which block the industrial development in Sabah.