By DayakDaily Team
KUCHING, Sept 11: The PETROS-PETRONAS dispute cannot be equated with the Tabung Haji controversy because it concerns Sarawak’s constitutional and historical rights and the legal relationship between Sarawak and the Federation, said Senator Robert Lau.
Lau said the dispute was fundamentally a question of constitutional rights, legislative authority and the historical exercise of federal power over Sarawak’s petroleum resources, and not an issue of corruption, financial mismanagement or governance failure involving public funds.
He was responding to governance expert Walter Sandosam, who had warned that the PETRONAS-PETROS deal could face a “Tabung Haji reckoning” in the future, arguing that decision-makers should take heed of past controversies involving Tabung Haji and Felda.
Lau said such a comparison failed to recognise the fundamentally different nature of the two matters and risked reducing a long-standing constitutional issue to one of governance and political compromise.
“Context matters,” he said, adding that Tabung Haji was fundamentally an institutional governance and financial-management matter.
In a statement today, Lau noted that the recent Royal Commission of Inquiry into Tabung Haji had raised serious questions concerning the management and investment of the institution, including the exercise of powers by those entrusted with managing it.
Similar concerns involving Felda and other federal agencies, he added, were also primarily matters of governance and their impact on the national economy.
“They do not involve the basis of the country’s constitutional position,” he said.
Lau pointed out that the PETROS-PETRONAS dispute was of an entirely different character as it involved the constitutional and legal relationship between Sarawak and the Federation.
“It engages the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63), the Federal Constitution, the constitutional position and boundaries of the States, and the respective powers of the federal and State governments concerning petroleum resources,” he said.
He stressed that there was no allegation that Sarawak’s claim was the result of corruption, embezzlement or mismanagement of public funds.
Lau also rejected the notion that the political dimension of the dispute should automatically be viewed as an accountability failure.
He said constitutional disputes in federations could require both judicial determination and political negotiation, noting that countries such as Canada and Australia had used political processes to resolve disputes involving different levels of government.
“The courts have their role in determining questions of law. Political leaders have their role in resolving matters that concern the relationship between the constituent parts of the Federation,” he said.
Lau said a political settlement consistent with the Federal Constitution and MA63 should not automatically be dismissed as an unacceptable “political compromise”.
“Political compromise is not synonymous with corruption, nor does negotiation necessarily mean surrendering accountability,” he said.
He further pointed to Section 3 of the Petroleum Development Act 1974 (PDA), which he said expressly provided for a political solution by giving the Prime Minister the power to give directions that are binding on PETRONAS.
“The political solution is given priority,” he said.
Lau said that if accountability was to be the standard by which the PETROS-PETRONAS issue was assessed, its historical context must also be examined.
He highlighted the extension of the Continental Shelf Act (CSA)1966, originally enacted for the Federation of Malaya, to Sarawak and Sabah in 1969 during the period of emergency through executive powers under the Emergency Ordinance 1969.
According to Lau, Sarawak and Sabah had their own pre-Malaysia laws governing their continental shelves, predating the 1966 legislation applicable to Malaya.
He said the 1969 development had profound consequences for the legal treatment and control of the continental shelf and petroleum resources of the two Borneo States.
“This raises a fundamental constitutional question: What was the legal and constitutional basis for using emergency powers arising from circumstances in Malaya to alter the legal position concerning the continental shelf of Sarawak and Sabah?” he said.
Lau said the question could not be answered simply by applying principles of internal audit or institutional governance.
Instead, he said, it required an examination of Malaysia’s constitutional history, MA63, the Federal Constitution, relevant legislation and the circumstances surrounding the exercise of Federal power in 1969.
“One cannot properly assess an issue without first establishing its context,” he said.
Lau acknowledged Sandosam’s professional experience in internal audit, corporate governance and anti-corruption oversight, including his former role as head of the Institute of Internal Auditors Malaysia and service on independent oversight panels of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.
However, he said professional expertise in internal audit did not, by itself, determine questions of constitutional law or the historical rights of Sarawak.
“The people of Sarawak are not asking for a favour. They are asking that the constitutional settlement upon which Malaysia was formed be examined and honoured,” he said.
Lau said the PETROS-PETRONAS dispute should therefore not be reduced to a question of whether politicians should or should not compromise.
“The real question is whether the Constitution, MA63 and the historical constitutional position of Sarawak have been properly respected,” he said.
He added that if the courts determined the relevant legal questions and political leaders subsequently reached a constitutional and mutually acceptable settlement, this should not be regarded as a failure of accountability.
“It may instead be the very exercise of constitutional responsibility that has been missing for decades,” he said. — DayakDaily
