KUCHING, Oct 12: Parti Bumi Kenyalang (PBK) president Voon Lee Shan has expressed disappointment with the national Budget 2020, which he described as “still depends heavily on subsidising the rakyat”.
He said the federal government should get rid of the subsidy mentality, especially amongst the people, and not dependent on resources from states such as Sabah and Sarawak to fuel government subsidies.
He felt that Putrajaya is heavily relying on resources obtained from the two Borneon states to fund its subsidies without giving equal portions to Sabah and Sarawak.
Voon was responding to Budget 2020 tabled by Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng in Parliament yesterday.
“Yesterday’s budget is an insult to the intelligence of the Sarawak people. The federal government has preached to the people not to be dependent on government subsidies but the federal government is dependent on the subsidies and hospitality of the people of Sabah and Sarawak.
“It’s a shame that the federal Cabinet, dominated by Malayans for the past 56 year, have been dependent on Sabah and Sarawak for survival but not doing justice to the two Borneon states,” he said in a statement.
Voon claimed that Peninsular Malaysia had taken the oil and gas of Sabah and Sarawak worth more than RM200 billion every year but only returned a combined RM10 billion to the two states.
“If Malaya don’t want to see the Federation of Malaysia fall apart, the federal cabinet should practice equal justice, equal opportunity, equal partnership and equal status.
“That is, the federal government should have all the allocations of next year’s budget be divided into three equal parts between Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak,” he suggested.
He opined that the small budget allocation given by the federal government was also evidence that Pakatan Harapan (PH) MPs from Sabah and Sarawak have no or little influence to secure a reasonable budget for the two states.
“They are simply passengers and toothless in the PH government,” he said. — DayakDaily
