KUCHING, Oct 22: According to Parti Bumi Kenyalang (PBK) president Voon Lee Shan the claim by Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Dr James Jemut Masing that Sarawak has control of its oil and gas resources is not true.
Voon in a statement today explained Masing should not deny the fact that Sarawak had lost its oil and gas resources under the Petroleum Development Act (PDA) 1974 and the Territorial Sea Act.
This Act, according to Voon, gives Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas) full control of the state’s oil and gas resources on land and offshore.
He pointed out that Sarawak Barisan Nasional (BN) was rebranded to Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), when BN lost the federal government to Pakatan Harapan (PH) in the 14th general election in 2018.
“This means Sarawakians have to hold the GPS government responsible for the loss of these resources by virtue of the PDA 1974 and TSA 2012.
Voon was responding to Masing’s statement yesterday that GPS must retain control over the Sarawak Legislative Assembly (DUN) to protect the oil and gas resources in Sarawak.
He pointed out that GPS which is now part of the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government which is in control of Parliament, could “easily” get the federal government to revoke the PDA 1974 and Territorial Sea Act (TSA) 2012 in order to automatically revert ownership of oil and gas to Sarawak.
“GPS owes the Sarawak people an explanation why this was not done,” he said.
Even though Sarawak now imposed the State Sales Tax (SST), Voon emphasised that it did not mean that Sarawak has ownership of the oil and gas resources which is now vested in the hands of Petronas.
“This SST is also applicable to sale of other goods in Sarawak such as sale of tyres and motor vehicles including motorcycles,” he explained.
Referring to a news report from The Sun Daily dated Feb 2, 2020, Voon emphasised that Petronas gained profits of not less than RM660 billion until today but only RM33 billion was returned to Sarawak.
“Petronas is pumping about 850,000 barrels of Sarawak’s crude oil daily (according to The Straits Times Aug 18, 2017) and this is a huge draining away of Sarawak’s wealth of about RM150 million a day and with gas, Sarawak had lost a wealth of over RM100 billion a year.
“But what Sarawak used to get back in terms of revenue was always less than RM5 billion. Is this fair and what had BN/GPS done?,” he asked.
He vowed that PBK will surely mount a stiff challenge against GPS in the coming state election and it is through independence from the Federation of Malaysia will Sarawak be able to take back all its resources from the central government in Putrajaya. – DayakDaily
