By Doreen Ling
KUCHING, Nov 5: Sarawak’s development expenditure should be RM7.74 under Budget 2025 given the State’s total land area, says Stampin MP Chong Chieng Jen.
Speaking during the debate on Budget 2025 in Parliament today, Chong said the RM5.9 billion allocated to Sarawak is “a mere 6.8 per cent of the total development expenditure of RM86 billion”.
“Sarawak’s land size is 124,450 square kilometres (km²), which is 36 per cent of Malaysia’s total land size of 330,800 km².
“With such a huge land size, surely Sarawak needs more development funds to catch up with West Malaysia,” he said.
Chong, who is also Sarawak Democratic Action Party (DAP) chairman and Padungan assemblyman, added that Sarawak has a population of 2.9 million as of 2022, which is approximately nine per cent of the total 32 million population in Malaysia.
“To be fair to Sarawak, the percentage in development expenditure for Sarawak should be nine per cent of the total development expenditure which is RM7.74 billion.
“Therefore, we urge the government to work along that proportion in the development budget,” he said.
Under Budget 2025, which was tabled last month, Sarawak is set to receive RM5.9 billion in development funds while Sabah is expected to receive RM6.7 billion. — DayakDaily
