KUCHING: Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) is questioning whether the RM4 billion allocated for the development of Sarawak was a fair amount.
Its president Tan Sri Dr James Masing said compared to the oil money Putrajaya gets from Sarawak, it was not a fair amount at all given that Putrajaya has been earning big money from the state’s oil and gas.
“It is not the amount that I’m interested in. What I’m interested in is whether the RM4 billion is a fair allocation, bearing in mind that the revenue the federal government gets from our oil and gas is huge,” he said when contacted earlier.
Masing revealed that in 2017, for instance, Petronas extracted approximately 850,000 barrels on average from Sarawak oil and gas fields.
“Is RM4 billion allocation a fair amount given to Sarawak? Bearing in mind what PH’s manifesto promised during the last general election (GE14), that Sarawak should get, PH promised, a big chunk of tax earn from Sarawak assets.
“Is RM4 and RM5 billion to Sarawak and Sabah respectively a fair amount? I don’t think it’s fair. We deserve more!”
Masing was also curious if the budget included the perimeter survey of Native Customary Rights (NCR) land in the details, as well as allocation to repair or rebuild Sarawak’s dilapidated schools and the ongoing Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) and Petronas issue.
“Former Prime Minister Najib Razak used to allocate RM30 million every year for this purpose. The money to repair Sarawak’s dilapidated schools is in the budget or not, I also don’t know.
“MA63 and Petronas extracting our oil and gas ‘illegally’ has no mention at all. Minister of Finance Lim Guan Eng kept quiet on these very important issues affecting Sarawak,” he said. — DayakDaily
