He urged the government to heed his call, pointing to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in the state especially with the imposition of the conditional movement control order (CMCO).

“It is likely that movement restrictions would continue due to the high number of cases in the state, and those most in need would then be forced to violate travel restrictions to work.

“With this, the spread of Covid-19 in Sabah will not stop and the country will continue to record a high number of cases,” Najib said on his Facebook page today.

Over the past few weeks, a vast majority of the country’s Covid-19 cases have been detected in Sabah, and the state has been placed under the CMCO until Oct 26.

Najib said Sabah’s poverty rate – “which is already the worst in the country” – will increase further unless aid is forthcoming.

He also predicted that the economic gap between Sabah and other states will widen if the government does not provide additional assistance to the state.

Najib said that providing an additional RM1,000 for each of the BPN recipients in Sabah would cost RM737 million, which is “much lower” than the RM2.9 billion petroleum sales tax paid to Sarawak last month.

“If the Perikatan Nasional government does not want to ask Petronas to bear the cost of this RM737 million in the form of petroleum sales tax, then the government still has a lot of room to borrow if it does not want to sell its assets.

“Therefore, just pay an additional RM1,000 and extend the loan moratorium for the whole of Sabah for at least three more months,” he said.

“With the current CMCO throughout the state and the ongoing Covid-19 cases, how can Sabahans pay their monthly loan instalments?

“Don’t just win the state election and forget about Sabah after that.”

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