Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) president Yong Teck Lee said today the federal government should not force the people of Sabah to accept what he described as harmful development projects like the proposed coal-fired power plant.

yong teck lee sabah sapp party pc 230409 02 He said that the federal government should instead allow Sabah to use some of its natural gas to build a natural gas-fired power plant as it was less costly, environmentally-friendly and safe.

Yong said natural gas-fired power plants were cheaper and more suitable to be built anywhere in the state to solve its prolonged power supply problem.

"As Sabah is a main producer of natural gas, there is no reason that a natural gas-fired power plant cannot be built in the state," he said when opening the Tanjung Kapor SAPP annual general meeting here today.

Yong, a former chief minister, was commenting on the remark by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak on Saturday night that the coal-fired power plant could be set up in Felda Sahabat, Lahad Datu.

View Auditor's report seriously

In another development, Sarawak Chief Minister Taib Mahmud reminded all controlling officers, including heads of ministries, departments and agencies to view the observations and weaknesses highlighted in the Auditor-General's report on the state 2008 public accounts seriously.

bn supreme council mt meeting sapp sabah issue 190608 taib mahmud Taib, who is also state finance minister, said this was to enable remedial actions to be taken to ensure that the same weaknesses did not recur as the state government must continue to sustain a clean bill of health into the future years.

"I am pleased once again to note that the Auditor-General has given a clean bill of health to the State 2008 Public Accounts and this is the seventh consecutive year that we receive an unqualified opinion," he said when tabling the Supply (2010) Bill, at the Sarawak state legislative assembly.

On the performance under the Ninth Malaysia Plan (9MP), he reminded all the agencies to put in extra effort to ensure that all the development programmes and projects were implemented and completed by next year.

"We have slightly more than a year remaining for the implementation of the 9MP, stimulus packages and RM1 billion federal Special Allocation programmes and projects," he said.

He added that the state's average annual gross domestic product growth for the plan period was estimated at 3.9 percent, revised downward from six percent as originally projected. - Bernama