KOTA SAMARAHAN, Oct 11: Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister, Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah, expressed disagreement with Constitution expert Emeritus Prof Datuk Dr Shad Saleem Faruqi recent statement on Sarawak rights over its oil and gas.
Abdul Karim said the professor might have given his statement based on his very own opinion and that there are certain things that he needs to go deeper.
“He (Shad) might not be in the know unless he goes very deep into the area of taxation,” he told reporters after the “Festival Drama Kuala Lumpur #DFKL versi #Sarawak” media session at Unimas, here, today.
He added: “If one look at it on the surface, then probably you be saying that the right to extracting oil is under the federal government but then he (Shad) was mentioning the Petroleum Development Act 1974.”
Abdul Karim said the Petroleum Development Act never received endorsement of the Sarawak government.
Likewise, he added that when the Sea Territorial Act 2012 was passed in the parliament, it had never been referred to the state government.
He reminded that anything to do with Sabah and Sarawak needed to be referred to the respective state government.
“If you bulldoze the thing, yes it will become a law but if it is to be challenged, it might create embarrassment.
“All these years we have been ‘seeing eye to eye’, the federal and state government. We don’t want to create an embarrassment to our ‘elder brother’, so that is why Shad should have looked at it on that angle.”
Abdul Karim said that if Shad relied on the PDA, then the rights on extraction to the oil is on the federal government.
He opined that the professor must look deeper at the taxation and see whether Sarawak has the right to impose sales tax on the downstream petroleum product.
“Sarawak has the right, as there is provision for it. Shad might have missed it when he looked into this matter.” — DayakDaily
