KOTA KINABALU, July 21 — Over RM12.41 million has been approved for the Community Development Leaders Unit (UPPM) in constituencies under the opposition in the first six months of this year, the Sabah State Legislative Assembly was told today.

State Assistant Finance Minister Jasni Daya said of the amount, RM11.17 million had been channelled to UPPM for the implementation of projects in their respective constituencies.

He said the allocation involved 354 small projects approved by Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor.

“To speed up the process of channelling this special allocation from the Ministry of Finance, the UPPM involved can submit applications through the local authorities in their respective areas,” he said in reply to a question from Alias Sani (Warisan-Sekong) who wanted to know the amount of allocations channelled by the state government to UPPM in opposition constituencies.

Jasni said the application to obtain the allocation must be submitted to the Chief Minister for approval, subject to existing financial procedures.

Meanwhile, Sabah Assistant Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Hendrus Anding said the State Agriculture Department encouraged the local fertiliser production industry to reduce the use of chemical pesticides through several measures including by adopting the Integrated Pest Management approach.

“We also encourage and promote the use of agricultural inputs based on beneficial microorganisms such as Plant Booster, Growth Enhancer and Bokashi (compost fertiliser),” he said.

He was responding to a question from Tan Lee Fatt (DAP-Likas) on the state government’s plan to reduce the dependence on imported animal feed, fertilisers and chemical-based pesticides.

Earlier, Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal’s (Warisan-Senallang) failed in his second attempt to table a motion to debate security threats of the Sulu Group after it was.

Speaker Datuk Kadzim M Yahya said according to Standing Order 23A (2) of the Sabah State Legislative Assembly any motion that had been previously rejected could not be brought up again for tabling.

Last Monday, Kadzim rejected the motion brought forth by Mohd Shafie in accordance with Standing Order 23 (2) which requires an application to table any motion to be made within 24 hours before the start of the conference. — Bernama