KUALA LUMPUR - Lawmaker Datuk Seri Bung Mokhtar Radin urged the federal government to re-evaluate allocations given to each constituency.
The Kinabatangan Member of Parliament said allocations should be based on the width and necessity of their area.
"Allocations for the representatives in Perlis, Melaka, Wiliyah and Kinabatangan are all the same," he said in the Dewan Rakyat yesterday while debating on Budget 2022.
Bung, who is also the Sabah Deputy Chief Minister, asked the government to set aside 10 per cent of the total budget for Sabah alone due to its size and population as a remedy to address the matter."Previously, it was about RM5 million and we will be getting the same amount next year.
"To make things worse, the implementation of initiatives is slow and this worries Sabahans. Therefore we want the government to look more comprehensively on the development of the Peninsula, Sabah and Sarawak region," he said.
Bung also urged the federal government to let the state manage its own funds.
He stated that when allocations were set aside for the state but managed by the federal government, Sabah could not develop or prosper like Penang and Selangor.
He said Sabah was among the poorest states in the country, saying the the situation has not changed much since he was 10-years old.
In October, the government allocated a budget of RM332.1 billion under which RM5.2 billion was set aside for the state.
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