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Support for call to let <b>Sabah</b> handle federal programs BorneoPost <b>...</b> Berita Sabah - News 2 Sabah

Support for call to let <b>Sabah</b> handle federal programs BorneoPost <b>...</b>

Posted: 03 Apr 2014 06:12 PM PDT

KOTA KINABALU: Likas assemblyman Junz Wong and former member of parliament Datuk Dr Othman Minudin expressed their full support to Minister of Tourism, Culture and Environment Datuk Masidi Manjun's recent call for educational power to be delegated to Sabah State Government.

Junz concurred with Masidi that such power was necessary in order for Sabah to develop and implement educational programs and projects at our own pace with great efficiency and effectiveness.

Two days ago, Masidi had blamed Putrajaya for the failure to implement federal government programmes in the State because the authority to decide lies with the federal government and the power is not given to Sabah State Government.

"Schools (projects) in Sabah are neglected due to issues like cement problem…if the power to decide is given to the director (State Education director), we have ample and able contractors to carry out these projects, but we still have to get the authorisation from Putrajaya.

"How wonderful it would be if the authority to decide is given to us (Sabah) so that we can implement the Education Ministry's programmes successfully," Masidi added.

In this regard, Junz proposed that Sabah should set up its own Education Ministry.

"In fact Sabah should set up our own Education Ministry to ensure Sabah does not fall short of education development based on Sabahan needs via not just on education projects or programs but also the need of students and teachers.

"For instance, Sabah Education Ministry can recruit Sabahan teachers to teach in Sabah coping with issues of shortage of qualified teachers in Sabah. We can implement our own educational programs such as alternative native language programs to preserve Sabah beautiful native cultures and languages," Junz said.

"This is beyond politics. I support Masidi's call regardless of our political differences because it is in Number 20 of our 20 points agreement that education should be under the power of state government. This is in the best interest of Sabah's future in education developments," he added.

Meanwhile, Dr Othman Menudin said that when he was the MP for Kinabalu during the Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) government in the early 1990s, he often raised the same issue in the Parliament.

He said during that time, the federal government's allocations for the education sector were only approved and released towards the end of the year, either in November or December, which was unfair to Sabahans.

"The reply from the deputy education minister to my question in parliament at that time was that we (Sabah) received a lot of allocation from the federal but we Sabahans don't know how to utilise the funds," he recounted, adding that it was impossible to fully utilise the allocations which were only released at the end of the year.

Angkatan Perubahan Sabah (APS) youth chief Denis Gimpah also expressed full support for Masidi's call.

"I fully agree with what Masidi said. This is one of the main issues that has brought us into Pakatan together with strong credible leaders from UPKO in July 2012, as we found that nothing or very little has been done by Putrajaya," he told The Borneo Post yesterday.

"Now, it is becoming apparent that the people, including Barisan Nasional (BN) leaders, have realised that what we have written in our manifesto during the recent general election is true. We didn't leave UPKO for the opposition or Pakatan simply because of minor issues. Rather, a lot of issues have been ignored by Putrajaya, particularly during Mahathir's tenure," he said.

He added that Sabah has always been left behind due to the cloak of bureaucracy created by Putrajaya.

Putrajaya, Gimpah said, should be sincere and give Sabah and Sabahans the power to manage their own resources and develop the State according to the State's.

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<b>Sabah</b> Air plans China flights - The Borneo Post Online

Posted: 02 Apr 2014 04:41 PM PDT

KOTA KINABALU: The MH370 issue will not mar the 40 years relationship that has been built between Malaysia and China, said Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister, Datuk Seri Panglima Masidi Manjun.

He also said that with respect to business, Sabah will continue to pursue business with China.

"Sabah is in the position to do that," he said.

He also said that Sabah Air plans to provide charter flights to China from here.

"I think it is good and I welcome them to the business," he said.

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<b>Sabah</b> no longer haven for cheap labour SEDIA BorneoPost <b>...</b>

Posted: 24 Mar 2014 11:29 AM PDT

by Nancy Lai. Posted on March 25, 2014, Tuesday

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Economic Development and Investment Authority (SEDIA) chief executive Datuk Dr Mohd Yaakub Johari yesterday disclosed that Sabah had passed the development stage where the state attracted investments due to the availability of cheap labour.

"We need to recognize that our ability to transform into a high income economy will depend on our ability to generate adequate human capital and an adaptable labour force with higher skills, talent, expertise and knowledge.

"Sabah indeed can no longer be a haven for cheap labour," he said at the SDC Innovation Public Forum jointly organised by the Institute for Development Studies Sabah (IDS) and SEDIA.

Mohd Yaakub in his speech also said that according to the Department of Statistics, unemployment in Sabah was relatively low at about 5.4 per cent in 2012.

"There were only about 85,300 unemployed citizens in Sabah in 2012. This is indeed a small figure in comparison to the number of foreign labour in Sabah, especially those in the plantation and construction sectors.

"What is very much needed now is to locate where these unemployed citizens are and ascertain their qualifications as well as skills level to enable them to be trained so that they could provide a pool of human capital geared to drive the economic transformation program," he pointed out.

According to him, to meet the human capital requirement of Sabah, SEDIA has been undertaking a concerted effort to visit and discuss with higher learning institutions locally as well as overseas on academic and research and development collaborations as well as enticing these higher learning institutions to consider setting up campuses in Sabah in particular to meet investor requirements in SDC projects in line with the Key Focus areas.

This initiative will be further intensified as SEDIA embarks on the third and final phase of SDC with emphasis on accelerating sustainable growth through the provision of adaptable human capital and dedicated infrastructure, he stressed.

Mohd Yaakub said that the key focus areas during the second phase of SDC following the alignment with the National Key Economic Areas (NKEAs) under the ETP are tourism, palm oil, agriculture, oil and gas, education and manufacturing/logistics.

In addition, he disclosed five focus areas have been identified to turn greater Kota Kinabalu into a strong, vibrant and liveable city.

These include the development and modernization of Kota Kinabalu into a lifestyle hub with more tourism attractions, improvement in mobility and travel, boosting the public and private healthcare which will help stimulate health tourism and improvement of early childcare education, he said.

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