THE absence of a structured salary scale in Sabah’s private sector is the cause for dissatisfaction of many Sabahans in coping daily expenses and taxes, Sabah deputy chief minister Raymond Tan said.

He said Sabahans had blamed the goods and services tax (GST) and other policies like the cabotage policy for the higher cost of goods in the state, but never complained of their stagnant salaries.

“Sabah company owners are often complaining about the minimum wage. They think it is bad for business.

“But unlike the public sector, the salary of Sabahan workers are not increasing. It is because Sabah bosses doesn’t apply a structured salary increment scheme.

“They (bosses) may have a structured increment for profits. It is very greedy when bosses make their profit, but not passing down them down to the workers,” he said during a Chinese New Year event with reporters today.

Tan’s previous comment that it takes a minimum income of RM3,000 a month to make ends meet in Kota Kinabalu drew flak from employers in the state in 2015.

Tan, who is also Sabah’s industrial development minister, said this was based on a survey carried by one of his ministry’s agencies called “Sabah Today”, which also noted more than half of the workers in Kota Kinabalu were earning much less than RM2,500 a month.

In the public sector and some government linked companies in Sabah, each year, staff were given bonuses, performance bonuses, other perks on top of their monthly salary, he said.

Tan said if the private sector practiced the same, there was no need for the federal government to exempt the cabotage policy for Sabah and Sarawak or scrap it if the private sector start implementing a structured salary scale.

“Sabahans are blaming the GST and cabotage. But in reality this is just politics at play. But if our income goes up, no matter what form of taxes being introduced by the government, the workers won’t suffer,” he said.

In return, employers can expect increased productivity from their workers and reap better revenue when company performs better, he said.

He noted Singapore had just tabled its budget three days ago and amid the Chinese New Year festivities, which included raising its GST from 7% to 9%.

But due to a structured pay by the private sectors, as well as cash aid not unlike Malaysia’s BR1M cash aid, Singapore workers would still be able cope with the rising taxes, he said.

According to Tan, employers and companies in Sabah need not worry about giving their workers better perks as the government will make sure they will reap returns from various incentives, investments and government development projects.

“It is the role of the government to make sure the companies make money,” he said. – February 22, 2018.