STAR:State govt has finally realised Acts not relevant to S'wak

SIBU: State Re­form Party Sarawak ( STAR) says the state gov­er­ment has fi­nally awo­ken to the re­al­i­sa­tion that Petroleum De­vel­op­ment Act, 1974 (PDA) and the Ter­ri­to­rial Sea Act, 2012 (TSA) are not rel­e­vant to Sarawak as thay have not been ap­proved by the DUN, and there­fore void.

         Its president, Lina Soo, said the state govern­ment has now ad­mit­ted that Sarawak’s rights and ter­ri­to­rial in­tegrity had in­deed been scrapped by Acts of Par­lia­ment, which con­tra­vened Malaysia Agree­ment 1963, and by ex­ten­sion, the Sarawak Con­sti­tu­tion.
   “Since the PDA 1974 is un­con­sti­tu­tional in Sarawak, the the state govern­ment should im­me­di­ately in­struct Petronas to stop its op­er­a­tions in Sarawak,” she told a press con­fer­ence here on Satur­day.
        She said there should not be any new li­cences is­sued to Petronas, and if nec­es­sary, the state govern­ment must also con­sider court ac­tion to safe­guard its oil and gas re­sources.

        STAR sec­re­tary-gen­eral Si­mon Tiong and com­mit­tee mem­bers were also present at the press con­fer­ence.
        Soo was re­fer­ring to the re­cent state­mant made by Chief Minister Datuk Pat­inggi Abang Jo­hari Tun Openg that the Petroleum De­vel­op­ment Act 1974 ( PDA) and the Ter­ri­to­rial Sea Act 2012 (TSA) are not rel­e­vant in Sarawak.
        Both are fed­eral laws, and for any fed­eral law to be im­ple­mented in Sarawak, the Sarawak State Leg­isla­tive Assem­bly ( DUN) has to en­dorse them.  And, since the state DUN had not en­dorsed both laws, they could not be im­ple­mented or su­percede the state laws.
        Soo thus urged the DUN to pass two res­o­lu­tions in the May sit­ting, to firstly, re­ject PDA 1974, and sec­ondly, to re­ject TSA 2012, to for­malise the state govern­ment’s re­pu­di­a­tion of both Acts which are detri­men­tal to Sarawak in­ter­ests and ter­ri­to­rial in­tegrity.

        She also said that prime minister, if he is sin­cere to re­turn Sarawak’s rights, should al­low the pro­vi­son to be at­tached to PDA 1974 and TSA 2012 with the clause
     ‘This Act shall not ap­ply to Sarawak and Sabah’.
      “We are not pow­er­less. We have the MA63 to safe­guard our na­tional in­ter­ests, and we have the laws on our side, in­clud­ing our Oil Min­ing Or­di­nance and Gas Dis­tri­bu­tion Or­di­nance,” she added.

         Soo said the an­nounce­ment of the chief minister rings hol­low if the state govern­ment does not fol­low up the con­sti­tu­tional process to for­malise the restora­tion of our rights, re­sources and pow­ers which have been taken away.
      “Who then will is­sue the min­ing li­cence to Pet­ros, is it Petronas un­der the PM or the Sarawak govern­ment un­der our CM,” she asked.
          Soo also ques­tioned re­sponse from DAP and PKR on their neg­a­tiv­ity and dis­in­ter­est to fight for Sarawak rights per­tain­ing to the is­sue of own­er­ship of oil and gas found in our ter­ri­tory.

        She said it’s strange that Pakatan Sarawak should sub­mit to Malaya’s hege­mony by prop­a­gat­ing our oil and gas as be­long­ing to the fed­eral govern­ment by rec­om­mend­ing 20 per cent in the new deal, should they come into power.
      “Why not 100 per cent in recog­ni­tion of Sarawak’s own­er­ship of our min­er­als, and then we can ne­go­tiable from there.”
        Soo said no MPs had on record ob­jected to the pass­ing of TSA 2012 in Par­lia­ment in 2012.
       STAR be­lieves that the PDA 1974 is un­con­sti­tu­tional, which has wrong­fully as­sumed own­er­ship of our oil and gas.
“   STAR fights for 100 per cent con­trol and own­er­ship of our re­sources and po­lit­i­cal bound­aries in­clud­ing our con­ti­nen­tal shelf and wa­ters.”
       Soo said this un­con­sti­tu­tional process of pass­ing through Acts of Par­lia­ment with­out ac­quir­ing con­sent from Sarawak DUN must cease-and- de­sist.
    “The state govern­ment and the op­po­si­tion ought to be vig­i­lant and serve the peo­ple with due dili­gence and deep com­mit­ment to safe­guard what be­longs to Sarawak.”