Hajiji
KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Umno has described the 2019 Budget as Pakatan Harapan’s ‘populist’ budget.
Its state liaison chairman, Datuk Seri Panglima Haji Hajiji Haji Noor, said it is not a budget that is friendly and inclusive for all walks of the rakyat.
“The 2019 Budget tabled by Finance Minister, Lim Guan Eng, is more of a populist budget, which is imbalanced as many segments of the community did not get to benefit from it.
“There is nothing that can be proud of in the 2019 Budget, which even deny the rights and entitlements of Sabah and Sarawak to get the revenue that appropriately should be returned to both states,” he said.
Hajiji, who is also Sulaman assemblyman, said the 2019 Budget is more concentrated on the B40 group, while there was nothing interesting for those in the middle and upper income groups.
He said there was no new initiative specifically meant to assist the people, especially those in the rural area and the urban poor.
The Bantuan Sara Hidup (BSH) proposed in the Budget also looks similar to the Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M) that was introduced during the Barisan Nasional era, he said, adding that however only 4.1 million people will receive BSH if compared to nearly 6.5 million people who enjoyed BR1M at the time when BN was in power.
He said the PH Government decision to float the price of petrol RON 95 based on Automatic Price Mechanism (APM) also differed from what it promised that is to lower petrol prices.
He said the farmers, breeders, fishermen and smallholders were also not given appropriate attention by PH because many of the assistance they received during the previous BN Government era were not mentioned in the 2019 Budget.
Hajiji said the 2019 Budget also did not mention about allocations for the airport and port transhipment hub expansion projects in Sabah, while the Industry 4.0 Policy Action Plan did not mention on how many small and medium enterprises in (SMEs) in Sabah will be involved.