Kota Kinabalu: The State Local Government and Housing Ministry is streamlining planning and building approval processes to make it easier for investors to do business in Sabah, said the Ministry’s Deputy Permanent Secretary Stanley Chong.
“A new Dealing with Construction Permit guideline will soon cut the entire development approval process to under one year,” he said at the SANKALPA Sabah 2030 Forum on the implementation of the SMJ 2.0 strategy held at the Sabah International Convention Centre on Tuesday.
“Building plan approvals used to take up to a year because there was no proper standard operating procedure,” he said.
“But with this new system in place, building plans only need to be approved within one month,” he added.
He said delays in the past discouraged foreign investment.
“They felt it was not worth investing in Sabah because there was no law or policy that could speed up the approval process and accelerate development in local authority areas,” he said.
The initiative falls under the Sabah Maju Jaya (SMJ) 2.0 Plan, Sabah’s strategic development roadmap for the 2026 to 2030 period.
Building on the recovery and stabilisation efforts of SMJ 1.0, the forward-looking framework aims to comprehensively boost Sabah’s economic competitiveness, accelerate infrastructure growth and uplift local communities.
Stanley said the Ministry, together with the Malaysia Productivity Corporation, has drawn up the new construction permit framework after engaging agencies, including the Department of Environmental Protection, the Town and Regional Planning Department, the Lands and Surveys Department and the Public Works Department.
He said most agencies were initially hesitant but eventually agreed to respond to applications within one month once the Ministry insisted on the timeline.
He said the document is expected to be completed by the end of July or August this year and will be brought to SMJ Secretariat Chief Coordinating Officer Datuk Rosmadi Sulai and Sabah State Secretary Datuk Zaiunudin Aman for adoption across all agencies involved.
Stanley said a new Town and Country Planning law is also being finalised together with the Department of Town and Regional Planning as well as a Uniform Building by Law framework that will further shorten approval timelines for development plans across all district councils in Sabah.
“The reforms are expected to give local authorities a clearer and more transparent basis for granting planning permission, opening the door to greater investment in Sabah,” he said.
