Sarawak Legislative Assembly members in a sitting. – Screengrab via Ukas
KUCHING (May 27): A total of 1,093 state-funded projects with a ceiling expenditure of RM30 billion have been approved under the 12th Malaysia Plan (12MP), Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas told the State Legislative Assembly yesterday.
The Deputy Premier said of this, 737 or 67 per cent were physical projects while the remaining 356 or 33 per cent were non-physical projects.
“The non-physical projects include grants, contributions, investments, programmes and events,” he said when delivering his ministerial winding-up speech at the august House.
Uggah, who is Second Finance and New Economy Minister, also said that as of March 31 this year, 103 (14 per cent) out of 737 physical projects have been completed while the remaining 634 projects (86 per cent) were still at various stages of implementation.
“The cumulative expenditure from the year 2021 up to March 31, 2022 was RM6.90 billion or 23 per cent against the 12MP ceiling,” he said.
For 12MP federal funded projects, he said a total of RM3.34 billion has been approved to implement 921 projects under the First Rolling Plan (2021-2022).
“A sum of RM1.97 billion or 59.11 per cent was spent as of Dec 31, 2021, where these projects are at various stages of implementation.
“Meanwhile, as of March 31, 2022, a total of RM4.19 billion has been approved under the Second Rolling Plan (2022-2023) to implement 914 projects of which 412 are new projects,” he said.
He added that for the first quarter of 2022, RM430.44 million or 12.85 per cent was spent.
Uggah also touched on the state’s labour market which saw most retrenchment in food and hotel services, wholesale and retail, and construction industries over the last two years.
“However, in 2022, we expect the labour market condition to improve, underpinned by the expectation of continued normalisation in the economic activities.
“For the first quarter of 2022, the unemployment rate in Sarawak is reported at 3.2 per cent compared to 4.7 per cent during the same period last year,” he said.