Chang asks why state government allowed S’wak’s special grant reduction in Budget 2021

SIBU: Bukit Assek assem­bly­woman Irene Chang said the Gabun­gan Parti Sarawak (GPS) govern­ment should clar­ify to the Sarawakians if they had known of the re­duc­tion of the spe­cial grant to RM16 mil­lion from the al­lo­cated sum of RM32 mil­lion in Bud­get 2020 be­fore the tabling of Bud­get 2021.

She asked why the GPS govern­ment had al­lowed the re­duc­tion of the spe­cial grant made un­der Ar­ti­cle 112D of the Fed­eral Con­sti­tu­tion it had known about the drop in the grant.

“The GPS govern­ment should there­fore come clean to ex­plain the short­fall of the spe­cial grant to Sarawak to as­sure the peo­ple that their rights and in­ter­est have not been short changed in any way.

All per­ti­nent de­tails of ne­go­ti­a­tion and agreed terms should be re­vealed in­clud­ing the agree­ment ar­rived at for the agreed re­duc­tion of the spe­cial grant from RM32mil­lion to RM16 mil­lion in Bud­get 2021,” she said in a me­dia state­ment.

Ban­dar Kuch­ing MP Dr Kelvin Yii re­cently re­vealed the re­duc­tion of the spe­cial grant to RM16 mil­lion from the al­lo­cated sum of RM32 mil­lion in Bud­get 2020.

Given the in­her­i­tance of huge debts from the pre­vi­ous BN govern­ment and which had then left the coun­try on the brink of bank­ruptcy, Chang said the in­cre­ment of the spe­cial grant from RM16 mil­lion to RM32 mil­lion in 2020 was one of the most her­culean ef­forts made by the Pakatan Ha­paran (PH) fed­eral govern­ment for the ben­e­fit of the peo­ple of Sarawak.

She said the PH govern­ment had re­mem­bered its pledge to help Sabah and Sarawak and dou­bled the spe­cial grants to the two states.

She said this spe­cial grant had never been re­viewed since 1969 and yet the PH Govern­ment had on its own ac­cord, in­creased the grant to RM32 mil­lion from 2020 un­til 2023 and was to be dou­bled again to RM64 mil­lion in 2024.

 “It is now there­fore cru­cial for GPS to ex­plain to the Sarawakians this re­duc­tion of RM16 mil­lion.

They have to clar­ify if this re­duc­tion was part of the ne­go­ti­a­tion on the com­mer­cial ar­range­ment be­tween Petronas, Fed­eral Govern­ment and the GPS Govern­ment.

“Was it also a part of the terms of ne­go­ti­a­tion for Petronas to agree to pay the RM2.95 bil­lion in the state sales tax? (RM2 billion 950 million)

The peo­ple of Sarawak have the right to know as this con­cerns their in­ter­est and wel­fare. They are the ones who stand to ben­e­fit or to suf­fer from any deal which the State govern­ment has made with the Fed­eral Govern­ment and Petronas.”

So far since the takeover of the fed­eral govern­ment by the Perikatan Na­sional(PN) govern­ment, Chang said both the GPS and the PN gov­ern­ments have re­fused to re­veal any re­port on the de­tails of ne­go­ti­a­tions or agreed terms held be­tween them. 

“Even the Sarawak Leg­isla­tive Assem­bly Con­sul­ta­tive Com­mit­tee, which was formed to ad­vance and safe­guard the spe­cial in­ter­ests, rights and po­si­tion of Sarawak as en­shrined in MA63 and the Fed­eral Con­sti­tu­tion, have not been up­dated since June 2020,’ she said.

Adding on, she said in the just con­cluded Sarawak DUN sit­ting, her mo­tion to move for the terms of set­tle­ment of the cases be­tween Petronas and State Govern­ment to be re­vealed to De­wan was also dis­al­lowed on the ground that the Con­sul­ta­tive Com­mit­tee had not at the ma­te­rial time of DUN sit­ting, re­ceived any re­port from the State Govern­ment for the mem­bers of the com­mit­tee to dis­cuss among them first.

“All th­ese re­ports on the de­tails of ne­go­ti­a­tions and terms of set­tle­ment are shrouded in se­crecy plus the fact that PN Fed­eral govern­ment has not al­lowed the fi­nal re­port from the Cabi­net spe­cial com­mit­tee which was tasked with re­view­ing the im­ple­men­ta­tion of MA63, to be made pub­lic should raise the Sarawakians’ guard on whether mis­takes of the past would be re­peated which would cause our rights to be fur­ther eroded.”