RM1.4m for Rakyat's benefit

Kota Kinabalu: Members of Parliament and assemblymen in Sabah will have more money to spend on developing their constituencies next year, with RM1million and RM400,000 allocated to them, respectively, from the RM1billion special allocation provided under the Ninth Malaysia Plan (9MP) Mid-term Review.

The RM1bil special allocation approved by the Federal Government is meant for the expenditure of several people-centric development programmes urgently needed in Sabah. Assistant Finance Minister Datuk Tawfiq Abu Bakar Titingan said this special allocation comes under the control of the Implementation Coordination Unit (ICU) of the Prime Minister's Department and will be channelled through the State Development Office.

Replying to Kiulu Assemblyman Datuk Louis Rampas during the question and answer session at the State Legislative Assembly here Wednesday, Tawfiq said the State Government had identified several public and basic infrastructure projects to be considered and approved by the ICU for implementation.

These include construction of town roads, agricultural roads, tourism, bridges and rural water supply. He urged elected representatives to discuss with local authorities in their respective constituencies on development projects to be implemented using this allocation. He said this needs to be given serious attention because the list of proposed projects needs to be submitted to the ICU before the end of this month.

The development projects to be proposed must be completed within the 9MP period which ends on December 2010, he said. To another question, Tawfiq said as far as he is concerned the Federal Government has not made any announcement about any RM4bil allocation for Sabah.