Poverty rate in <b>Sabah</b> plunges – Teo - The Borneo Post Online Berita Sabah - News 2 Sabah |
| Poverty rate in <b>Sabah</b> plunges – Teo - The Borneo Post Online Posted: 10 Apr 2014 02:52 PM PDT KOTA KINABALU: The federal government, together with the state government, has made great efforts to eradicate poverty by offering skill-based programmes, improving basic infrastructures and providing access to knowledge. Minister of Special Tasks Datuk Teo Chee Kang said the government had offered the 1AZAM programme, set up 1Malaysia Development Berhad that funded the 1M4U programme and provided WiFi access in major districts and villages as part of its efforts to eradicate poverty. He said the government was also trying to boost the economy by providing soft loans and setting up several funds for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), new entrepreneurs and also programs to help the cottage industry. "In ensuring the plans are carried out smoothly, the eKasih system was established. "This is the centralised Malaysian National Poverty data bank set up for the purpose of planning, coordination and monitoring by all related agencies and received the first prize in the prestigious United Nations Service Award in 2012." With these efforts, Sabah has seen a drop in poverty rate from 19.7 per cent to 8.1 per cent from 2009 to 2012. In the same period, Teo said poverty rate in rural areas recorded a sharp decline from 32.8 per cent in 2009 to 12.9 per cent in 2012. Poverty rate in the urban areas had also dropped from 9.8 per cent to 5.3 per cent in the same period, he added. Teo said this at the signing and exchange of documents of Sabah Institute of Art (SIA) – Commission on Sabah's Affair (COSA) Caring Fund programme here yesterday. The SIA-COSA Caring Fund programme gives an opportunity for students from needy families, especially Sabahan natives to pursue higher education. Students under the programme will undertake a three-year diploma course on scholarships offered by SIA while COSA will assist the students in their transportation, accommodation and living allowances throughout their study. Speaking of education, Teo said education was a universal dream, one that granted transformative seeds of opportunity to every child. In the 1970, one third of Malaysia's population aged six and over had never attended school. "Today, Malaysia is close to achieving the second Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education, with almost all school-age children completing six years of learning. "Public investment in schools has been a key factor in successfully reducing poverty from the high levels seen in the 1970s to the level prevalent today," he said.   |
| Feed-in Tariff to include <b>Sabah</b>, Labuan - The Borneo Post Online Posted: 01 Apr 2014 05:44 PM PDT KOTA KINABALU: The Energy, Green Technology and Water Ministry announced yesterday that the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) will also include Sabah and Labuan. Its minister, Datuk Seri Panglima Dr Maximus Ongkili, said the FiT quota for Peninsula Malaysia, Sabah and the Federal Territory of Labuan would be released for application on May 2, 2014. "The quota release for 2014 marks an important milestone in the implementation of the FiT mechanism as the state of Sabah and Federal Territory of Labuan will be participating in the FiT mechanism for the first time," he said in a statement yesterday. Ongkili said the total FiT quota allocated for commercial operation by end of this year will be 65 MW and this covers the renewable energy sources of biogas, biomass, biomass (solid waste), small hydro, solar photovoltaics (PV) for the individuals, solar PV for the non-individuals, and a new category for solar PV for community. In addition to the inclusion of Sabah and Labuan, he said the ministry has also revised five of the subsidiary legislations including those concerned with the Displaced Cost (DC) and the Technical and Operational Requirements (T&O) rules. The DC has been revised upwards to reflect the increase in the cost of supply of electricity in Peninsular, Sabah and the Federal Territory of Labuan. The new DC will allow more quotas to be released from the expected amount of the Renewable Energy Fund (RE Fund) to be collected, he explained. "Whereas the amendment to the T&O subsidiary legislations include changes to some of the definitions in the subsidiary legislations in order to standardise them with the definitions used under the Electricity Supply Act 1990 and its associated regulations. The amendment will also result in a reduction in transaction cost incurred by renewable energy developers. "For example, Solar PV installations with capacity of 12kW up to 425kW will only incur a connection confirmation check cost of between RM1,000 and RM5,000," he said. Previously, installations exceeding 180kW up to 1 MW require a Power System Study (PSS) that costs RM20,000. Further refinements have been made to the FiT quota application process for large-scale solar PV exceeding 425 kW. Application for this category must be submitted manually to SEDA Malaysia. The applications must comply with all existing requirements under the e-FiT system as well as other additional conditions that will be disseminated by SEDA Malaysia through their website at www.seda.gov.my and stakeholders engagement workshops. The FiT is a policy mechanism administered and managed by the Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA) Malaysia as provided for under the Renewable Energy Act (Act 725). However, the allocation for FiT quota is still available for the next eight years after 2017 for non-solar PV technology. To mark Sabah and Labuan's inaugural participation in the FiT, there is a special solar PV quota of 5MW for non-individual applications for Sabah and Labuan for application capacity of above 425kW and up to 2MW. Ongkili pointed out that the Malaysian Government since the Eighth Malaysia Plan in 2001 has embedded renewable energy into the energy mix. The rationale for this is to increase the country's energy security, autonomy and to address climate change. This is in particular to reduce the country's dependency on fossil fuel and to utilize indigenous resources that are renewable. As such, he said the government has implemented the Small Renewable Energy Power (SREP) programme which spanned a decade concluding 2010. However, as at the end of 2010, the renewable energy (RE) projects connected to the grid was only 61.2 MW. To encourage the growth of Renewable Energy in the country, he said the Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water came out with the National RE Policy and Action Plan (NREPAP) that was approved by the Cabinet on 2nd April 2010. The core framework of the NREPAP was centred on the implementation of the FiT which was introduced on 1st December 2011 in Peninsular Malaysia whereby there is an additional charge of 1% to the electricity bills which goes to the RE fund to allow people to participate in the FiT programme. However, domestic electricity consumers with less than 300 kWh consumption of electricity per month are exempted from such contribution. Currently, the percentage of approved Feed-in Tariff projects is 2% of the total electricity generating capacity. This is based on 537.97 MW of RE capacity approved under the FiT with baseline of 27,179 MW of total electricity generating capacity in the country since 2010. Our target is for Renewable Energy to constitute 5% of the energy mix in 2015. "With the tariff review effective Jan 1, 2014, the FiT will also include the Sabah and Labuan. The contribution into the RE fund has also been revised to 1.6% for all participating states to increase the fund for renewable energy. "I wish to inform that as at end of February 2014, RM4.8 million has been paid out to biogas, RM4.86 million to small hydro, RM37.8 million to biomass and RM40.9 million to solar PV," the minister added. |
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