THE Federal Ministry of Domestic Trade and Cost of Living has appointed Universiti Malaysia Sarawak and Universiti Malaysia Sabah to carry out a six-month comprehensive study on the high costs of living in Sarawak and Sabah respectively.
The study will come with recommendations on how to tackle the surging costs of living to enable Putrajaya to draw up a blueprint to tackle and overcome the issues.
"Minister Datuk Armizan Mohd Ali had enlisted the two universities to carry out comprehensive ground studies on the high costs of essential items in Sarawak and Sabah respectively.
"The study will be for the next six months and the teams will identify the factors causing these high disparity in prices of essential items in each state.
"They will also recommend suitable measures to tackle these high costs and the ministry will formulate policies to stabilise the prices of essential items in east Malaysia and bring down the high costs.
"The Madani Government does not want the rakyat in east Malaysia to be burdened by high costs of living and disparity in prices of essential goods," the ministry said in a statement.
On Apr 19, it was reported that prices of foodstuffs, goods and services and general costs of living have been skyrocketing in Sarawak.
Sarawak United Peoples Party (SUPP) information chief Adam Yii had said that the federal government needs to help bring the situation under control before imposing fuel subsidy rationalisation or the rakyat will suffer even more. - October 11, 2024
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