KUCHING, Oct 18: Chong Chieng Jen has told the Premier of Sarawak not to deviate from the truth on the issue of the RM1 billion advance repayment from the State government to the federal government for dilapidated schools.
Chong claimed the allocation requested was an “additional direct grant” which the then finance minister Lim Guan Eng under Pakatan Harapan (PH) had gone out of his way to make sure the whole repayment amount went back to Sarawak, which before that was never the practice in the history of Malaysia.
The Sarawak Democratic Action Party (DAP) chairman was responding to a statement made by Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg during the townhall session at Lan Berambeh Anak Sarawak in Kuala Lumpur recently. Abang Johari said he was challenged by the then finance minister (referring to Lim) four years ago to repay a RM1 billion loan from the federal government in advance when he urged the PH government to continue developing schools in Sarawak which had been agreed to before PH came into power.
Chong, who came into Lim’s defence, asserted that when Lim offered to the Sarawak government that the whole repayment of RM1 billion to be allocated back for Sarawak as a direct grant for the repair and upgrade of dilapidated schools, it was an extraordinary offer giving special preferential treatment to the State.
“It is a gesture of goodwill. The RM1 billion allocation requested by the Sarawak government then was over and above the allocations approved by Parliament in the Budget 2019.
“The additional allocation would need to be approved by Parliament via Supplementary Supply Bills and the federal government would have to find an additional source of revenue to finance such additional expenditure,” he said in a statement today.
As the Sarawak government owed the federal government billions in loans and under the normal financial process, Chong who is also the Stampin incumbent, explained that any loan repayment by the State government to the federal government would go into the Consolidated Fund from which allocations to the various states would be made for different projects and programmes as stated in the Budget or Supplementary Budget.
“It never happened in the history of Malaysia that the whole of the loan repayment amount be allocated back to the borrower state. All the years before, when the State repaid its loans to the federal government, the money just went into the Consolidated Fund and was then allocated as expenditure for all other states.
“Any person who understands the workings of government financing process and procedure would appreciate such preferential treatment,” he said while urging Abang Johari not to twist the facts.
To give such preferential treatment to Sarawak, Chong added that Lim even had a heated argument with the then prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who initially objected to it but acceded to Lim’s request.
He also pointed out that since the PH government fell in 2020, Sarawak continued to repay its loan to the federal government but unlike what Lim has done, the federal government under Perikatan Nasional (PN) or Barisan Nasional (BN) (which GPS is part of the federal government) did not make it a point that the repayment be given back to Sarawak as a direct grant.
“The repayment amount just goes into the Consolidated Fund and subsequently shared amongst all other states through budgetary allocations.
“It is also to be noted that the more than 1,000 dilapidated schools came about after 55 years of BN government’s abuse. It is only in 2018 that the PH federal government started taking serious measures to rectify the problem,” he elaborated.
As such, Chong said it was most unreasonable for Abang Johari and Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) to demand that PH, in 22 months of government, to resolve the problem created over 55 years.
“A person of the stature of the Premier of the State should not stoop so low to try to win some political points through such cheap shots and misrepresentation,” he added. — DayakDaily
