Associations support DM's stand on rights over O&G resources

        MIRI: The Bu­mi­put­era com­mu­nity here are in full sup­port of Chief Min­is­ter Datuk Pat­inggi Abang Jo­hari Tun Openg’s state­ment that Sarawak will not com­pro­mise on reg­u­la­tory rights over its oil and gas re­sources.

Miri Malay As­so­ci­a­tion( PMM) pres­i­dent Radzali Ali­sion, in par­tic­u­lar, said PMM fully en­dorsed the state gov­ern­ment’s firm stand on Sarawak’ rights to its min­eral re­sources as stip­u­lated in its Oil Min­ing Or­di­nance (OMO) 1958 and its rights un­der Malaysia Agree­ment 1963 (MA63).
      How­ever, he said PMM would like the state to get all its O& G in­dus­try play­ers to im­me­di­ately ad­here to all reg­u­la­tions un­der the OMO with­out any grace pe­riod, es­pe­cially in the case of Petronas.

“   PMM sup­ports the Chief Min­is­ter on the rights over Sarawak’s oil and gas re­sources,” Radzali told The Bor­neo Post on Sun­day.
       Radzali also said PMM sug­gested that the Sarawak gov­ern­ment seek de­tails of how pay­ments/roy­al­ties are cal­cu­lated by Petronas all these years and to im­me­di­ately, be­fore the end of this year, claim back all ar­rears due to the state and its peo­ple.
        He said Petronas must also give guar­an­tee of em­ploy­ment of lo­cals, which should form part of the terms of is­su­ing li­cences un­der the OMO or other rel­e­vant or­di­nances.

        PMM sup­ports the Chief Min­is­ter on the rights over Sarawak’s oil and gas re­sources. Radzali Ali­sion, Miri Malay As­so­ci­a­tion(PMM) pres­i­dent.

        On the MA63 is­sue, PMM would like Gabun­gan Parti Sarawak (GPS) and all Sarawak mem­bers of Par­lia­ment to pro­pose ap­pro­pri­ate amend­ments to any rel­e­vant fed­eral laws in the com­ing par­lia­men­tary ses­sion with­out wait­ing for the fed­eral gov­ern­ment to ini­ti­ate such changes, he added.
        Shar­ing the same view, Per­sat­uan Ke­dayan Miri ( PKM) chair­man Mohd Ab­dul­lah is con­fi­dent that Abang Jo­hari is look­ing at the is­sue from a big­ger per­spec­tive.
He said what­ever de­ci­sion made should be of Sarawak’s in­ter­ests and rights and no other par­ties can just step in and do what­ever they want to the state’s re­sources.

    “The peo­ple of Sarawak have waited so long for our rights to O& G and MA63 and to wait any longer will be very frus­trat­ing and un­for­give­able,” he said fur­ther.

   “Our CM has made his re­search and find­ing on our rights be­fore we joined Malaysia as we (Sarawak and Sabah) are equal part­ners with Malaya and stay firm on the de­ci­sion.”
       Per­sat­uan Jat­tie Meriek ( PJM) com­mit­tee mem­ber Sarkawi Hamzah said the as­so­ci­a­tion sup­ported the chief min­is­ter’s stand.

The Borneo Post

My Comments:

     I hope that more and more organisations like the ones above will stand up to give their point of view on Sarawak's rights.