SEBERANG PERAI, March 18 — Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim today urged all states to prioritise resolving the people’s issues.
He said state governments should also address social issues such as poverty, floods and public housing while pushing for infrastructure development.
“If you ask me, aside from infrastructure development, I would say the priority is to solve the issue of extreme poverty and floods,” he said in his speech at the Madani state-level iftar event at Masjid Abu Ubaidah Ibni Al-Jarrah in Bandar Tasek Mutiara today.
He then commended the Penang state government for its Madani affordable housing initiative, the largest housing project to date, which is expected to be launched this year.
The initiative involves building nearly 38,000 residential units with a gross development value (GDV) of RM13 billion in Batu Kawan and Seberang Jaya.
It will offer homes priced between RM300,000 and RM420,000, mainly targeting the B40 and M40 income groups.
Meanwhile, Anwar also urged parents to cooperate and support the government’s decision to implement changes to further push the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) agenda.
He said starting next year, 70 per cent of admissions to Maktab Rendah Sains MARA (MRSM) must be for the STEM stream.
“This decision may not be well received by some of you but this is necessary for us to meet industry demands for a highly skilled workforce, especially in advanced technology fields,” he said.
He said even if there are objections to this, it will not be entertained.
“We will lose out if we give in. We have bought in Infineon, Nvidia, Arm Limited, Microsoft and Google into Malaysia, but we are still short of local talents to meet the industry’s needs,” he said.
