TUPONG assemblyman Fazzrudin Abdul Rahman has proposed that disbursement of RM500 book vouchers for Sarawakian students in public and private tertiary institutions to be done through direct credit instead of physical vouchers.
While he welcomed the new initiative to ease the financial burden of the students from low-income households, he said it is necessary to have a mechanism to avoid leakages and profiteering by other parties if given in the form of physical vouchers.
Under the 2024 State Budget, a sum of RM17.5 million was allocated for this purpose and expected to benefit 35,000 university and college students from families with a monthly household income of RM1,500 and below.
Meanwhile, he said the Sarawak government should set up a dedicated portal or mobile application to facilitate job matching to address unemployment and labour shortage in the job market.
He said this is to streamline the job-seeking process and mitigate the rising cases of online job scams that jeopardise the personal information of applicants.
“Through a dedicated job portal, Sarawakian applicants can use their digital SarawakPass where they can fill in personal information without it falling into the wrong hands and provide a platform to maintain a record of employers and their reputations.
“While job portals run by private entities are saturated in the market, the cost for job advertising might burden smaller companies or start-ups and not reach the targeted audience,” he said when debating the 2024 State Budget in the State Legislative Assembly (DUN) today.
He said this is also in line with the state government’s commitment to promote job matching through programmes such as the Sarawak Career and Training Fair (SCAT Fair).
Furthermore, Fazzrudin also echoed the call by Premier Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg for the federal government to address the imbalance in development allocation to Sarawak.
“Just because Sarawak is doing well financially and is implementing projects on its own, it does not mean that Putrajaya can shirk its responsibilities and cut corners.
“The duties, responsibilities and obligations of the federal government to Sarawak must be fulfilled in the spirit of the Malaysian federation,” he said.
