'Sabah New Deal inadequate to help businesses, employees'

By Olivia Miwil - June 19, 2020 @ 11:27am

KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah New Deal is a laudable effort to boost several economic sectors – but its anticipated multiplier effect may be limited, the Sabah Employers Association said today.

Its president, Yap Cheen Boon, said that the allocation, which emphasises digitalising business ecosystems and processes, has a temporal mismatch and is inadequate to achieve its targeted results.

The RM240 million deal, which was announced by Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal yesterday, will inject RM22 million into the tourism sector and RM59 million into agriculture.

It also introduces non-fiscal measures to stimulate the property sector; RM20 million to up-skill the state's affected workers; and RM22 million to help 50,000 small-medium industries and small-medium enterprises.

In a statement today, Yap said that since the implementation of the Movement Control Order (MCO) in March, Sabah has seen 25,113 workers placed on unpaid leave.

"As highlighted by the Statistics Department, the country is heading into an economic recession in the next four to six months.

"Digitalisation requires a transformation of economic structure, which takes time. This measure is certainly in the right direction, but not able to solve the urgent solvency problem as faced by many businesses now just to survive."

Almost 40 per cent, or 18,243 employers of the state's businesses, are now receiving monthly wage subsidies to keep employees on the payroll.

Yap added that more relief funds should have been released for businesses to sustain themselves till the end of the year, before the digitalisation programme could go ahead.

"Barring further new measures from the state government, most Sabah businesses will still have to be self-resilient, relying on their own accord, to weather the storm, and ride through this tough crisis period," Yap added.