Kota Kinabalu: The Federation of Chinese Associations Sabah (FCAS) hopes the Federal Government will expedite upgrading Sabah’s healthcare, internet service and basic infrastructure.While welcoming the RM6.3 billion allocated for Sabah’s development in the 2023 Budget, its President Tan Sri T.C Goh hopes the Federal government will strive to better improve the quality of public healthcare services, broadband service, and basic infrastructure, which is obviously still lagging behind other states.
He said, the Covid-19 pandemic in the past three years had exposed the glaring shortcoming in these three sectors in the less developed states, Sabah included, especially in the rural areas, which has evidently affected the people and businesses.
He cited the pandemic period when some students in the interior of Sabah had to climb up trees, in order to acquire internet connection for them to conduct online learning, since all the schools were ordered to close.
He thus hoped the Federal government could through the Budget 2023 or the ongoing 12th Malaysia Plan (2021 – 2025), to step up efforts to better improve the standard of these three sectors, so that the distressing episode of students climbing up the trees to acquire internet connectivity, will not recur in future.
Goh, who is also a member of the Sabah Economic Advisory Council (SEAC), said in principal, he welcomed the Federal government allocation of RM6.3 billion in Budget 2013 for Sabah’s development which covered basic infrastructure development, electricity and water supply, public healthcare service, education development etc.
He also noted that the allocation of RM6.3 billion for Sabah, next year, was an increase of 20.45 per cent as compared to this year’s allocation of RM5.2 billion; it is also higher than the previous year’s allocation of RM5.1 billion, and also more than the allocation for Sarawak, which is RM5.4 billion, for 2023.
