KUCHING: Housing matters in Sarawak have been brought to the federal Minister of Local Government Development Nga Kor Ming for attention.
Deputy Premier Datuk Seri Dr Sim Kui Hian said he had the opportunity to raise several important issues related to Sarawak during a courtesy call on the minister recently.
“Under the Malaysian Constitution, there are three lists – Federal List, Concurrent List, and State List.
“We had a fruitful discussion on the subject of housing which is a matter under the Concurrent List as we have not introduced any new project for housing from the federal government since the change of the federal government in 2018.
“Although the Sarawak government has been stepping up with our own funding for housing, we would like the federal government to do its part and have our fair share for housing as Sarawak hascontributed more than its fair share of Malaysia’s revenue through various taxes – income tax, oil and gases taxes, Petronas profits, stamp duty, palm oil windfall tax, and others,” he said in a Facebook post.
Dr Sim, who is the Minister of Public Health, Housing and Local Government, said another issue raised was the need for more fire stations in Sarawak.
“Matters concerning fire and rescue services fall under the Federal List and I had shared with the minister in case his officers and MPs had not brought the matters to his attention that Sarawak’s geographical distances and sparse population – the standard criteria for fire stations in West Malaysia – is not suitable or applicable to Sarawak,” he said.
He said Sarawak currently has 39 fire stations but is well short of the 60 fire stations needed based on the standard Malaysia Fire and Rescue Department’s (MFRD) Fire Risk Assessment.
“Even the 39 fire stations don’t have the typical norm of having two fire engines per station, as in West Malaysia,” he said.
Having said that, Dr Sim described Nga as very gracious, frank and that the latter “will work together as he is a minister for Malaysia”.
“Nga has also assured that Sarawak will be not be ignored by his ministry’s programmes, including the upgrade of old fire stations that is being planned for West Malaysia,” he said.
