Dato Sebastian Ting
MIRI: Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) slams federal Tourism and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz for his comments on state Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture, Youth and Sports Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah.
SUPP secretary-general Dato Sebastian Ting, in a statement yesterday, said the party is disappointed over Nazri uttering the barrage of insults and stands firmly behind Abdul Karim’s call to defer enforcement of Tourism Tax Act 2017.
“It is indeed very disappointing and outrageous that Datuk Seri Nazri, being a senior minister with many years of experience, would call a fellow BN (Barisan Nasional) Sarawak minister as ‘samseng’ (thug) and even boastfully referred himself as the ‘bigger samseng’.
Nazri’s rude response to Abdul Karim’s suggestion raised a storm among the people in Sarawak and Sabah, with netizens flooding the social media with their angry comments.
Ting stressed that SUPP agrees and fully supports the call made by Abdul Karim to defer enforcement of Tourism Tax Act 2017 – set for July 1 – until there is a proper discussion and negotiation between the federal and state governments on how the collected tourism tax could actually help develop Sarawak’s tourism industry.
SUPP calls on all Sarawakians to be united and strongly rally behind Abdul Karim, giving him their fullest support.
The party also fully supports the decision of the state government to withdraw the participation of its representative in Malaysia Tourism Board with immediate effect.