Frankie Poon telling Christina Liew of the need to improve infrastructure in Sandakan.
SANDAKAN (Wednesday Aug 23): Datuk Frankie Poon Ming Fung said infrastructure wise Sandakan is in ‘incentive care unit (ICU)’ and on the verge of dying.
The Tanjong Papat assemblyman, who is also Sabah DAP chairman said, many residents are moving out of Sandakan for good. This is not a good sign.
He said short-term drastic proactive measures have to be taken to improve the infrastructures of Sandakan.
“In the recent State Legislative Assembly sitting on 8th to 10th August 2023, I warned that Sandakan is in ICU and on the verge of dying, he said in a statement Wednesday.
Frankie said he would visit all the relevant Ministries in the near future to discuss with and to urge the relevant Ministries and Ministers to pay more attention and to prioritise to Sandakan with more allocations in budget.
“I started off with Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Environmant last week as I believe the catalyst to boost the economy is the present of a huge population,” he said, adding that creating permanent population overnight is impossible.
“Thus the alternative is by creating temporary residents through Tourism,” he said.
Frankie said this industry would help by having more tourists and their presence would create employment and other economic activities. Jobs, food, housing and transport related would certainly be the immediate beneficiaries.
A surge in direct flights from abroad or domestic tourists is therefore very much needed. Daily 10 to 20 flights of tourists inbound would boost Sandakan with 1,500 to 3,000 increase in population.
He said government agencies should be creative to attract tourists and to increase tourists arrival. However the shortfall in our infrastructures should be improved in the shortest possible time.
At the same time the present Sandakan in particular offers very unique Tourism products for different value markets. Food tourism is a must. Eco tourism should be enhanced.
The beach at Selingan and Bangkunnan islands will be added attraction for day trippers. Nonetheless of course, the famous orang utan sanctuary with sun bear next door and the RDC in the vicinity have been pulling tourists.
With all these said, beds availability should be increased as current room’s availability are just a little more than a thousand in Sandakan.
“With this I call on the Minister (Datuk Christina Liew) and her Ministry will do more for Sandakan and to get Federal Ministry to help out Sabah, in particular Sandakan, Frankie added.
According to him, the post Covid-19 situation should be a good consideration to accommodate shortfall of our tourism players in Sabah.
