KUCHING, Nov 4: Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg has taken the federal government to task for not fulfilling its election manifesto promise to allocate 30 per cent of its total development budget to Sarawak.
Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng recently announced in the federal 2020 budget that the federal government had approved an allocation of RM4.4 billion for Sarawak out of a total of RM56 billion in development expenditure.
“This amount represents only 7.8 per cent of the total federal development budget next year, and not 30 per cent as perceived by some people,” he said during his Sarawak Budget 2020 speech on the first day of the Sarawak Legislative Assembly sitting today.
Lamenting the allocation as unjustified and total budget as very much skewed towards Peninsular Malaysia, Abang Johari reminded the federal government not to forget that Sarawak has contributed significantly to national economic growth and contributed as well as to the federal government’s coffer in terms of collection of taxes and revenue from oil and gas over the past 50 years. — DayakDaily
