THE SAS has not declared or paid out any dividend for the year 2011. Many unit holders have approached and requested the KK MP Hiew King Cheu to express and highlight their concern and regrets over the state owned unit trust fund which was originally set up to help the poor people in Sabah.
The unit price of SAS had dropped from its high value of RM1.26 at one time to now merely RM0.31 per unit. Many people who had listened and followed the Sabah government’s advice in investing their live-long saving, pension, took loan from banks and from loan shark, borrowed from family members with a hope to invest into the unit trust and to make some money.
This did not work out, and many people ended up in deep financial hardship and their investment was spoiled. As the PBS had coded that the unit value can’t even buy a 'pisang-goreng'!
After all the calls for the government to help SAS, but their action did not materialized, and the present market value stays as low as RM0.31 per unit or could be less. Many people are still paying their loans, facing pensions being cut, and many had been entered into bankruptcies.
The sad story continues and until today after 18 years, many people still stuck in deep jeopardy caused by the Sabah SAS. The agony goes on, and there is nothing the Sabah State government has done in terms of jacking the value of the unit back to its previous promised value of RM1.00 per unit.
In fact, many people who had invested into the SAS unit trust, had the general misinterpretation and taken the wrong impression that the government promised them that the value will not fall below RM1.00 per unit until today.
They have also misunderstood the 'guarantee buy back at RM1.00 per unit' if any one chose to dispose their share. They were happy because the government had given advice to bank to approve and release easy loans fast to the people who want to use the loans to purchase the SAS units. This had resulted many people are chased by the bank for the loan money until today.
KK MP Hiew was given copies of the full page advertisement published in the local news by the SAS during the launching, and together with the promotion leaflets. He noticed that in very small prints, the SAS will buy back the units only at the current market value. This is something that many unit holders did not know and accept until today. They said they were conned into believing that the value will not fall below RM1.00 per unit.
The government had injected RM200 million into SAS creating new units hoping that this injection of fund can bring about some rise in its value and to attract more new investors, but from the unit value increase by only RM0,10 per unit.
Their action is not promising and has functioned as it should be. It will be interesting to know how much of the additional millions of units created by the state government will be taken up by investors, or rather it is the state government is still holding on to the new units.
Hiew urges the SAS should come up with the dividend as soon as possible, or else the fund could be seen as not making money but losing.
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