Sabah’s economy recovered significantly after Gabungan Rakyat Sabah came to power, a Parti Gagasan Rakyat Sabah division leader said in dismissing criticism by Warisan’s Justin Wong on the state’s current economic performance.
In a statement, Dr Roland Chia claimed Sabah’s economy did not fare well under the Shafie Apdal-led party.
Chia said Sabah registered economic growth of 1.5% in 2021, from the -9.1% the previous year. GRS came to power in September 2020.
And from 2021 to 2024, Sabah registered positive growth consistently, Chia said, with the state’s total economic output reaching an all-time high of RM84.3 billion in 2024.
“This shows that the (economic) recovery has continued since 2021 and has not shrunk as Wong seems to suggest.”
Wong recently said that Sabah had dropped out of the top six major contributing states to the national gross domestic product (GDP) for the first time, when countering chief minister Hajiji Noor’s claim that GRS was not a failed state government as the state’s economy had recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Wong also claimed that Hajiji’s statement that GRS had put Sabah’s economy back on track was misleading.
Chia, however, said Wong had failed to mention that prior to the pandemic, Sabah’s economy was worsening.
Citing data from the statistics department, Chia said economic growth fell to 1.5% in 2018 from the 8.1% registered in 2017. And in 2019, economic growth plunged further to 0.7%.
“This proves that Warisan had failed to manage the state economic growth even before the pandemic struck,” he said, adding that Wong had cherry-picked figures to confuse the public.
The Inanam PGRS division chief also said that Sabah’s reserves had more than doubled since GRS helmed the state, noting that in 2024 reserves stood at RM8.6 billion.
Under Warisan, Sabah’s reserves had stood at RM3.2 billion.
“This again shows that GRS is more efficient when it comes to economic governance and management of the state’s finances. If this is considered a failure, how do we define success?”
