Sabah mature enough for self empowerment – Hishammuddin

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KOTA KINABALU: Sabah has reached the stage of maturity where it is ready and capable of self empowerment without sacrificing its alliance with the central government as a member of the Federation of Malaysia.

Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein said pulling Sabah out of Malaysia is not the right move as it will bring more difficulties rather than benefits for its people.

“I like the use of the word empowerment because it’s not easy to take Sabah out. If you take Sabah out from Malaysia, that means you would not have my Gempita, my Hawk, the oil rig (modified into forward operation base for ESSCom), my three battalions (mobilized for ESSCom). Who is going to protect Sabah, it will be free for all. You will have to find your own police (too).

“The whole of Malaysia is protecting Sabah now and we are still struggling. Imagine if you want to be autonomous. But empowerment, I think Sabah has reached a stage of maturity and I will leave it the Chief Minister to look at what are actually the sort of empowerment that would satisfy the need of Sabahans,”he saidwhen asked to comment on growing calls for autonomous Sabah during an exclusive interview with The Borneo Post and its sister papers, See Hua Daily News and Utusan Borneo, here on Friday.

The Umno vice president said Sabah could among others be empowered to be more involved in oil exploration activities.

Instead of just looking at the royalty it receives from the oil extracted from its waters, he said Sabah should think outside the box and look at how it can benefit more directly from this valuable natural resources.

“I can see Sabah is venturing into this, and that is the way forward, that is empowerment. If we can steer the discussion towards this (instead of royalty), then it is very exciting for the future of Sabah.

“You are talking about the big cake, not just five percent (that is given back to the State as royalty) but the 90 percent (that goes to finance exploration). You are building the industry, you are competing with Petronas. If we can show that Sabah has the capability to do its own exploration, then the returns would be even bigger. This is the sort of empowerment that we need (for Sabah). I think Sabah is ready for that,”he said.

Hishammuddin also said the people of Sabah should not dwell on oil royalty, as it would not make much difference even if the five percent royalty that goes into the federal coffer is given back to the State Government.

Continuous quarrel about the royalty, he added, will only turn into politics and polemics, cautioning that any changes to the royalty rate in Sabah would have an impact on all arrangements between the federal and other oil producing states such as Sarawak and Terengganu.

Hishammuddin also dismissed accusations that Sabahans were being marginalized by the Federal Government and Peninsular Malaysia were not giving back enough for the natural wealth they have been taking from the State.

He said the federal government under the leadership of Barisan Nasional (BN) should be given credit for what it had done and achieved for Sabah since the formation of Malaysia over five decades ago.

He stressed that Sabah is what is today not because of the opposition’s doings, but due to continuous development efforts by the state and central BN governments.

“This is not self-praise, but where we (Sabah) are today is purely due to contribution of our BN government,” he said.

Asked how the BN government should address the sentiments propagated by the opposition that Sabahans were being short-changed by the federal, he said: “By proving to Sabahans that we have invested a lot more in Sabah than what the opposition is saying.”

He said the Federal Government, for example, had done everything it could to defend the sovereignty of Sabah during the bloody incursion by the armed group from the Philippines in Lahad Datu in February 2013.

The federal government, he added, has also invested heavily to boost security in the State to prevent such incident from happening again.

“And there is no more valuable asset that we can sacrifice for Sabah than the lives of the policemen that we lost in Lahad Datu. This is just in the recent incident but there have been more who have fallen before that.

“How do put value on life? That is my simple answer to people who try to simplify put nation building in ringgit and sen, because it is more than that. How many opposition members are willing to die for Sabah? The man who accused us of doing sandiwara (play acting)? The people who say that you are being short-changed?

“Are they willing to fight to the death for Sabah? We have proven ourselves that it’s not about money. It’s about people who don’t question that Sabah is part of us and we will defend it with our lives,”he said.

While security is one of the most obvious reasons for the merger of Sabah and its other partners in the federation, there were also many other great benefits that Sabah has enjoyed as part of Malaysia, said Hishammuddin.

Among them is education development, where the Federal has built schools and sent teachers to educate the children of Sabah, including in most remote villages in the rural areas.

“I can speak on this because I was the minister of education before. One of my biggest agendas was to persuade the teachers to teach in the rural areas in Sabah. They were teachers from Semenanjung, from Kuala Lumpur, Ampang … So, they were reluctant.

“I came up with a special allowance scheme for teachers to teach in these rural areas, and then the numbers increased. How do you put value on education that we have invested in Sabah, not only the schools, which is physical, but what about the teachers that we have persuaded to come and teach our children here? So, security, education, that is my answer to the argument.

“I can also answer it in figures, which will show that the money we have invested in Sabah is much more than the (oil) royalty they are demanding now,”he said.

To a question, Hishammuddin agreed that Sabahans were still very much with BN despite mounting criticism against its top leadership and the State BN and Umno under the leadership of Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman has remained very strong.

“History has shown that at the end of the day we have always put the party as more important than the individuals, and I think that has come across from the leadership of Datuk Musa, and I, as vice president of Umno, appreciates it,” he said.