Chong to table ‘oil and gas royalty’ motion today

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KUCHING: Kota Sentosa assemblyman Chong Chieng Jen will move a motion to request the state to get the federal government to raise oil and gas royalty from five to 20 per cent.

Chong, who is state DAP chairman and Bandar Kuching MP, said he had submitted the notice for the motion under Standing Order 23 to the State Legislative Assembly (DUN) secretary and it was received by the DUN secretariat on April 25.

He said under normal circumstances, the motion is supposed to be moved in the DUN sitting today.

In the motion, Chong is seeking for a resolution from the august House that the state government make a formal demand to the federal government to increase royalty payable in lieu of oil and gas rights to 20 per cent of the gross value of oil and gas extracted from Sarawak and its surrounding waters.

“I’m moving this motion as there is no other appropriate avenue to make this resolution.

“DAP will fully support this motion and I hope BN will do the same. I also hope BN will adopt this motion,” Chong told a press conference after the opening of State Legislative Assembly (DUN) sitting here yesterday.

He said that Chief Minister Tan Sri Datuk Amar Adenan Satem had openly supported the notion of requesting for the royalty rates in lieu of its oil and gas rights to be increased to 20 per cent.

“Having this august House pass a resolution to demand the federal government to increase oil and gas royalty to 20 per cent is different from having the chief minister meeting the prime minister (Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak) (in a closed discussion).”

Chong argued that the present five per cent oil and gas royalty received by the state was insufficient and unjustifiably low, given that oil and gas were Sarawak’s natural resources and that the state needed the oil and gas money to alleviate Sarawak out of its backwardness.

“The federal government’s annual development allocation for Sarawak is grossly insufficient to bring the level of infrastructural and economic development of Sarawak to be at par with West Malaysia. We are 20 years behind them.”

He said despite the state being rich in its natural resources, especially oil and gas, it is the fourth least developed state in the country in terms of composite development index ranking.