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16th July, 2008
KOTA KINABALU: The federal government should consider allowing departments and agencies to continue holding events and functions in hotels, urged Minister of Tourism, Culture and Environment Datuk Masidi Manjun.
He said the state hotel industry had been affected by the federal government ruling that instructed government departments and agencies to limit their events at hotels.
“The tourism industry is in a critical situation ever since the fuel price hike. They have asked the government to allow departments and agencies to continue holding functions and events in hotels,” he said.
Masidi told this to reporters after chairing a dialogue session with hoteliers and tour operators at a hotel here yesterday.
“I support this call. Although the government wants to save cost, we did not see foresee the implication on the hotel industry. In fact, the ruling will indirectly reduce their income and may force them to retrench staff. This will be another problem,” he said.
Masidi rationalised that revenue for the state in the form of tax will also be affected if the hotel earnings drop because the industry is a major income generator for the tourism sector.
“Hotels in Sabah depend a lot on government departments and agencies for business and the federal government needs to withdraw that ruling to ensure the economy in Sabah is not threatened,” he said.
Masidi has discussed the matter with Chief Minister, Datuk Seri Musa Haji Aman and the state government has decided to continue holding events at hotels but will save in other ways and spend prudently.
On another development, Masidi’s ministry is in the process of finalising the terms of reference for ratings given to remote resorts in Sabah.
“The whole idea of this exercise is to ask the resorts to make use of nature to generate their own power. We want to encourage them to make use of solar energy,” he said.
He believed that the idea is practical based on an experiment conducted in his village in Ranau where the villagers constructed a mini-hydro plant with minimal cost that has the capability to generate free electricity 24 hours a day.
“I believe this is a question of creativity. The government should look into the whole business of power generation as a service rather than a business proposition to enable us to provide basic facilities to the villagers,” he said.
Masidi encouraged all remote resorts to make use of solar power which is clean, efficient and cheaper than conventional energy.
“That is the trend of all the resorts in the world that have been eco-certified. We want to encourage owners to do that because in the long run they can recover the financial investment. Like in Pangkor Laut, Perak they are able to command a higher rate than most resorts. I think that is the way forward for us,” he said.
Meanwhile, Masidi said there had been a significant drop in the number of jobseekers among Filipinos and Indonesians coming to Sabah via Tawau and other ports.
There has been a 58 per cent decrease in the first five months of this year since the government announced an operation to flush out illegal immigrants in Sabah.
“I don’t know whether this is good or bad news, but politically it is good news,” he said.
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