KUCHING, Nov 23: The special grants to Sabah and Sarawak has been reduced to the same amount since 1969.
This was revealed by Bandar Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii who pointed out that under the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government, the amount paid under Article 112 (D) in the Federal Constitution was doubled.
“Article 112(D) in Federal Constitution on special grants to Sabah and Sarawak was reduced this year to the original figures since 1969.
“Under PH, we doubled that amount and revised the figures after more than 40 years and now Perikatan Nasional (PN) reduced it back to what it was before,” Dr Yii revealed in a statement today.
Meanwhile, Dr Yii who is attending the current Parliament session in Kuala Lumpur expressed his concern over the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) negotiation and asked that the details to be make public.
“The (reports of) Special Committee for MA63 must be revealed or tabled in Parliament for all to see. The Minister tried to claim that it is a G-G (government-to-government) negotiations and thus (has) no need to be revealed to public. I argued that this should not be the case, as this involves all our rights as Sarawakians and Sabahans.
“We cannot repeat mistakes of past when agreements were made between G-G without the knowledge of the people and thus our rights were eroded.”
He also raised his concerns over the fact that the new Special Council for MA63 that was formed under the current PN government has not meet until now even though they have been the government for more than nine months.
“What have they been doing?” he questioned.
He believed that the committee cannot use the Covid-19 pandemic as an excuse to be idle as other departments or ministries continue to function during this period of time. — DayakDaily
