KOTA KINABALU: Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Seri Panglima Raymond Tan Shu Kiah has refuted Democratic Action Party’s (DAP) statement that the lack of good industries and high dependence on natural resources-based economy were reasons for the long-term stagnation of workers’ salaries in Sabah.
Tan, who is also Industrial Development Minister, said there were no ‘bad’ industries in Sabah.
He said the State’s agenda focused on the development of three sectors, namely agriculture, tourism and manufacturing.
Tourism, which comes under the services sector, is now a vibrant and growing industry, he said.
“Services sector contributes 40 per cent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the State.”
Meanwhile, Tan said the development of the manufacturing sector was very much based on our resources – oil and gas, plantation and forestry.
For the past seven years, he said the State Government had formulated plans to develop resources in the State instead of exporting resources as commodities.
He pointed out that the State had gone into downstream activities for oil and gas with the Sabah Ammonia Urea (Samur) plant in Sipitang Oil and Gas Industrial Park (Sogip).
He said Samur had 500 skill-trained workers, 80 per cent of whom are Sabahans.
“We are now talking about the second ammonia plant in Sogip.”
At Palm Oil Industrial Cluster (POIC) Lahad Datu, he said 23 investors had ventured into downstream activities of producing chemical and other products from crude palm oil (CPO) and biomass.
“With the industries in Sipitang and Lahad Datu, we are able to get investments and generate high-pay jobs for more skilled workers,” he said.
In effort to equip workers with higher skills and therefore getting higher pay, Tan said the government provided Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET).
“TVET is basically tailored to make sure we get people to work in the right industries.”
He said the problem in Sabah was that workers generally had low academic level.
In 2013, Tan said 46 per cent of the workforce in Sabah only had secondary-level education while 30 per cent merely had primary education.
“That’s why we are asking schools not to let students leave without completing higher education.
“The second way is to engage them in skills training for various areas of the industries through TVET.”
Even with low education level, Tan said workers could secure better jobs with higher pay when they had undergone skills training.
“A welder in the oil and gas industry is paid RM3,000 a month.”
With training, he said middle-skill workers could earn RM3,000 to RM4,000 a month, while highly-skilled workers earned up to RM6,000 a month.
“We are helping workers to migrate from low skills to higher skills,” he said.
Tan said the government had plans and policies in place and was guided by these plans to deliver real development and jobs.
Sabah DAP publicity secretary Phoong Jin Zhe had said that the long-term stagnation of workers’ salary in Sabah stemmed from the fact that Sabah did not have good industrial and manufacturing sectors as its driving force, over relied on foreign workers and was highly dependent on natural resources-based econmy.
He said this caused the loss of large numbers of high-tech and skilled talents from the State, and as a result, most jobs in Sabah were low-paid and low-skill jobs, and the reason the median salary in Sabah was the lowest in the country.
For instance, Phoong said in 2016, more than half of the workers earned less than RM1,240 monthly income.