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KUCHING: Parti Sarawak Bersatu (PSB) is demanding an answer from the Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) government for allegedly sacrificing Sarawak’s oil and gas rights with its settlement with Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas) recently on the State Sales Tax (SST).
Pointing out that his party was shocked by the sacrifice of Sarawak’s ownership of its oil and gas, Dato Sri Wong Soon Koh said he had called for an explanation from the Chief Minister on accepting the validity of the Petroleum Development Act 1974 (PDA) and acknowledging that Petronas had full authority over the state’s oil and gas.
In reply to his call two days ago, the PSB president said the state’s de facto law minister, Datuk Sharifah Hasidah Sayeed Aman Ghazali, had alluded to “Sarawak rights protected by the Federal Constitution, The Malaysia Agreement 1963 and the Recommendations under Inter Governmental Committee Report 1962.”
He added that Sharifah Hasidah, who is Assistant Minister in the Chief Minister’s Department (Law, State-Federal Relationship and Project Monitoring), also said: “The GPS State Government remains firmly committed to defend the sovereign rights of Sarawak to the oil and gas resources of the State.”
In this respect, Wong said: “This then begs the question why the GPS government capitulated and gave up our State rights to challenge the validity of the Petroleum Development Act 1974?”
Wong said this question was expressly and specifically raised by him in a press statement which Sharifah Hasidah purported to reply to.
“Why did the GPS government and the Chief Minister avoid answering my question? Did not GPS continuously shout that the PDA 1974 was invalid as far as Sarawak is concerned? Were there not cries of sovereignty over our petroleum rights which the PDA 1974 was supposed to have eroded illegally?” Wong asked.
“Yet, in this so-called ‘settlement’ with Petronas for which Petronas paid a fraction of what is rightly due to Sarawak, why did GPS find it necessary to sacrifice Sarawak rights to challenge the PDA 1974?”
Wong, who is the former second finance minister, said Sarawakians were entitled to an answer from the GPS government.
The state government had Petronas had issued a joint statement last Friday to announced that they had reached the settlement in which the national oil corporation had agreed to pay the RM2 billion SST owed to the state.
It said they were dropping their legal suits against each other and in addition, Sarawak had agreed to reduce the SST rate imposed on the corporation from the current five per cent in phases.
The statement was signed by Sharifah Hasidah and Petronas chairman Datuk Ahmad Nizam Salleh.
To ensure that the commercial solution was implemented smoothly, the Federal Minister of Works and Minister of Finance has been tasked to chair a working committee overseeing the matter, said the statement.