RIDHUAN Lamig remembers the good times under the Sabah Barisan Nasional government when he could sell all his daily catch by 5.30pm.

“Now I struggle on till 8pm and if no one comes, I have to pack up and freeze my fish to sell the next day,” said the 30-year-old fishmonger in Kinarut, a small town about 30 minutes’ drive from Kota Kinabalu.  

After selling at the Kinarut wet market in the morning, Ridhuan brings a tray of his cencaru (fish) to sell on the pavement in front of a vegetable store in Kinarut’s old town centre.

“The fish used to be RM12 per kg. Now it’s RM8 per kg. Even with this low price, I struggle to get customers. I’ve been on the pavement from noon to 4pm and I only have one or two customers.”

Before the Warisan Plus coalition came to power after the 14th general election in May 2018, there was infrastructure and property development all over Sabah, said Ridhuan.

“It was good under BN. There were many projects. Locals would have jobs and money to spend.

“They would buy up all the produce from us by 5pm,” said Ridhuan, pointing to the shelves still laden with greens and fruits in the store in front of him at 7pm.  

“But nowadays, my customers are telling me they don’t have money, that it is difficult for them to buy much.”    

Ridhuan’s complaints about sluggish demand and sales are shared by other traders in the Kinarut area and reflected in official statistics.  

Sabah charted the lowest growth in 2019 and 2018 among all 15 states and regions measured by the Statistics Department.

Dampened business activity during the past two years will weigh heavily on the Warisan Plus coalition as it seeks another mandate from Sabahans in the September 26 elections.

The tepid growth is also the main message of Sabah BN in its campaign to convince voters that the region was better off under it before Warisan Plus came to power after the 14th general election.

“Warisan’s government has been the worst for Sabah’s economy. We used to enjoy growth of up to 8% per year but under Warisan, it’s gone down to almost zero,” said Hajiji Mohd Noor who leads Sabah Perikatan Nasional.

In a rally before his party machinery, Hajiji urged members to bring this message to Sabahans that PN would revive the economy with help from the federal government.

PN is aligned with Sabah BN and Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) and the biggest rivals to Warisan Plus.

Work stalls

Growth in 2019 was 0.5%. In comparison, the next lowest was Sarawak at 2.5% and Johor at 2.7%. The national economy grew by 4.7% in 2019.

According to the department, Sabah’s growth was lower in 2019 due to negative growth in two of its biggest sectors – mining and quarrying (-6%) and agriculture and plantations (-0.8%).

In 2018, Sabah’s growth rate was 1.5%, while Sarawak’s was 2.2% and the next lowest was Terengganu at 2.5%.

When Sabah was under BN rule, the region grew by 8.2% in 2017, the highest among all regions that year.

In 2016, the Sabah economy grew by 4.7%, 2015 (6.1%) and 2014 (5%).

Wong, an entrepreneur with businesses in construction, tourism and property, said one reason that commerce was lower during Warisan’s short-lived term was the delays in allocating contracts for the Sabah portion of the massive Pan-Borneo highway project.

The Sabah portion involves 35 work packages totalling about RM12.8 billion and stretching 1,236 km.  

“Only about 12 packages were given out by the Sabah BN government before GE14,” said Wong, who declined to give his full name.  

“Had Sabah BN continued to be in power, another 15 packages would have been given out and work on it would continue.”

When the federal-level Pakatan Harapan came to power, it stopped the packages to reduce its costs.

“Although Warisan wanted to try and save costs on the project, the fact that work on the highway stalled meant that local businesses would not feel the spillover effects of the project until work restarted.”

Sabah-based political economist Dr Firdausi Abdullah said Warisan Plus started significant initiatives that could boost the region’s economy but they would take years to bear fruit.

One policy is to start light and light-medium manufacturing to reindustrialise the region so that Sabah does not just depend on oil and gas and commodities like palm oil, said Firdausi of Universiti Teknologi Mara Sabah.

An example of this policy is the cooking oil factories, which are a boost in smaller towns, such as Tawau, Sandakan and Keningau.  

“This would create jobs and boost other downstream business activities. We would process the raw material we produce to sell in the local and external markets.

“But these ventures take time to bear results. As a government, there is only so much you can do in two years,” Firdausi said. – September 15, 2020.