Sandakan Old Money Young Exodus As East Coast Fortunes Fade

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Once Sabah’s timber and palm oil capital, the east coast town of Sandakan now moves at half pace.
At Bandar Kim Fung market, the coffee still flows, but the young are gone. Older residents linger over cups, trading stories about their children doing well in Singapore or Kuala Lumpur as they spend their mornings out shopping for groceries.
In the housing estates, large houses still rise behind tall gates, reminders of a time when timber and palm oil made fortunes overnight. Many remain in the hands of the same families, the old money clans whose wealth came from the forests and estates.
“The market is full of older folks now. They come every day to drink coffee and kill time. Their children are all working away. You hardly see any young faces anymore,” said 41-year-old Rebecca Chong.
ADSSome stayed behind, like 20-year-old Eusoofe Musrin, who spends his days driving for Grab in a battered Ford Ranger, a truck he bought after a brief and exhausting stint on a palm oil estate two hours away.
“The pay was okay, but the roads were bad and the trip took two hours each way. By the time I got there, I was too tired to work. Now I just drive. It’s not a life, but at least I earn something,” he told Malaysiakini.
Most of his schoolmates, he said, have left for Kota Kinabalu, Johor, or Kuala Lumpur.
“They’ll come home for holidays, maybe not for elections. There’s nothing to come back to. Airfare isn’t cheap, and there’s no good work for the young here,” he said.
Arshad Bensu, 48, who also works as a delivery driver, said behind Sandakan’s pockets of wealth, poverty still runs deep.
He recalled delivering an air conditioner to a customer who paid for it through ShopeePay.
“Luxury here goes on credit. Many buy things in instalments. I see it all the time, families trying to keep up, even when money is tight. They’re lucky if they still have jobs,” he said.
Timber empire to tired town
Sandakan’s port once roared with sawmills and ships in the 1970s. The palm oil boom of the 1990s through the 2010s kept the docks busy and the town’s economy thriving. The booms built schools, roads, and political empires, particularly for BN.
The mills have yet to go fully silent in the outskirts of this town once branded “Little Hong Kong”, but attempts to pivot to tourism have largely fallen flat.
Tourism was meant to save the East Coast, but most visitors now head to Kinabatangan or Semporna.
“The bookings all go through Kota Kinabalu. We get crumbs,” said Adam, who drives a tour bus.
ADSThe Four Points by Sheraton, once Sandakan’s only five-star hotel and a key employer, shut its doors in 2020 and remains closed to this day.
Former shopowner Wong Kon Fung, 58, remembers when business thrived.
“I had two coffee shops before Covid. Both gone. I voted for DAP last time. This time, maybe Warisan. It doesn’t matter who wins, we’re still stuck,” he said.
Now driving for Grab, Wong said he had grown disillusioned with DAP’s promises.
Economists call it legacy wealth, fortunes locked in land, property, and family firms rather than in new jobs or industries.
In Sandakan’s Chinese majority seats of Elopura and Tanjong Papat, timber and trading clans still own much of the real estate, though many now live abroad. In the bumiputera majority districts of Libaran and Batu Sapi, wealth tends to follow politics, shifting with contracts, projects, and influence.
“Sabah has much to thank Sandakan, Batu Sapi, and Libaran for. Timber and palm oil built the state’s economy. But the people who worked for it never saw the reward,” added Chong.
The new money, if any, comes from delivery work, small traders, and children sending remittances home.
Politics in the ruins
The old political families remain fixtures in local races. Hazem Mubarak Musa, a son of former chief minister Musa Aman, will contest in Sungai Manila under Gabungan Rakyat Sabah.
“We respect Musa, but times change,” one voter said.
Hazem Mubarak MusaIn Gum-Gum, Warisan’s Arunarnsin Taib held on by just 269 votes in 2020 and now faces PKR’s Abdul Said Pimping in the coming state polls.
“Ten years ago and now, same story, no progress despite promises to create more jobs for the youths,” said Rebecca.
Across the bay in Tanjong Papat, the contest has turned personal.
DAP’s Tang Szu Ching will take on former Sabah DAP chief Frankie Poon, now running under KDM led by deputy president Wetrom Bahanda.
“Szu Ching? Rarely on the ground. If they drop Frankie, he’ll still run. People here vote for the person, not the party,” said Tanjong Papat native Mohamad Adam.
In Elopura, DAP’s Vivian Wong, who is also the Sandakan MP, faces her former colleague Calvin Chong, now with Warisan.
An ageing electorate
The Election Commission’s 2025 data showed how sharply the demographic tide has turned.
In Tanjong Papat, nearly 47 percent of voters are aged 50 and above, while only 38 percent are under 40, a clear sign of a greying population.
In neighbouring Elopura, younger voters still form a narrow majority, making up 54 percent of the 39,000 electorate, but older voters now dominate community life.
Across the bay in Karamunting, 39 percent of voters are 50 or older, the same generation that fills Sandakan’s coffee shops and markets each morning, holding on to memories of a once-booming town. - Mkini

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