KOTA KINABALU, June 4 — Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor wants the state Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Industry Ministry (Maffi) to prioritise Sabah’s hardcore poor in their action plans and programmes to end poverty in the state.

Speaking after his working visit to the ministry at Wisma Pertanian near here today, Hajiji instructed them to focus their efforts on the poorest category.

"Under eKasih data as of May 18 this year, Sabah’s hardcore poor household heads has dropped to 8,699. I hope more initiatives under Maffi will involve them. We want to make sure they are lifted out of abject poverty,” he said.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim last week was reported saying that the federal government had set July as the deadline to eradicate the hardcore poor category in Sabah.

He said he was confident this could be achieved due to various resolutions. The latest data from the statistics department showed that Sabah was still the poorest state, although the number of hardcore poor households was at 9,000, down from 20,000.

State finance minister Datuk Masidi Manjun said that there were also officials on the ground reaching out to the families and cleaning up its list to ensure the latest data was correct.

However, opposition leader and Warisan president Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal said that it was no easy feat to completely eradicate this issue in Sabah given the poor infrastructure in rural areas and islands.

Meanwhile, Hajiji said Sabah’s agriculture, fishery and food industries were ready to move forward with its plans to boost Sabah’s food self-sufficiency level (SSL).

The Chief Minister wants government-linked companies owning unutilised lands to be developed for agriculture, particularly paddy as mandated by the State Cabinet.

Earlier Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Industry minister Datuk Seri Jeffrey Kitingan said his Ministry is appointing 15 board members including a chairman for the recently-approved Sabah Padi and Rice Board (LPBS)

Kitingan, who is also deputy chief minister, said that the board’s goal was to enhance Sabah’s self-sufficiency level to 65 per cent in 2030 and 100 per cent in 2035.