KUCHING: Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg urged the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) to collaboration with the state government to bring more development in technology infrastructure.
“We have no option but to inject RM1 billion of our own state funds to enhance telecommunication infrastructure across the state,” he told reporters at a press conference after the launch of the Sarawak Beyond Paradigm Summit 2019 at Pullman Hotel here, yesterday.
He added that the federal government levied on telecommunication companies (telcos) but these telcos, which were supposed to develop infrastructure did not do so in Sarawak due to the relatively smaller market and slower return on investment.
Abang Johari further explained that his administration had no choice but to allocate state funds to upgrade telecommunication infrastructure in Sarawak.
“So they don’t invest here. We are in a dilemma. We then use government funds in the injection of technology here because infrastructure cost is high,” he stressed.
“We need to improve our digital infrastructure for the people in the state, especially those in the rural areas,” he said.
Meanwhile, he also revealed that Sarawakians are good in producing software with some of them having succeeded in the industry.
“We have some successful ones out there. But because of our infrastructure, they are not returning to Sarawak.
“Thus, it can be concluded that the state is on the right track in producing talented individuals on software programming,” he pointed out.
The state government is now collaborating with not only Huawei but also Honeywell and Cisco in the development of software programming.
“Honeywell is good in software. Cisco is good at developing software encryption, and these two will help us to develop a secure software to keep our data so that it will not be easily hacked,” he said.
