KOTA KINABALU: Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman has refuted a claim by Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) president Datuk Yong Teck Lee that Sabah’s maritime territory had been ceded to Brunei Darussalam.When asked to comment on the matter Musa said, “According to the Sabah Attorney General, (Datuk Rhoderic Fernandez) no Sabah territory has been ceded.” He told reporters this after chairing the State Working Committee on Security at Wisma Innoprise here yesterday.
According to Musa, the state government is aware of the issue as Wisma Putra had briefed on it a couple of times.
Two days ago, Yong claimed that the reported ceding of three million acres of Sabah’s maritime territory (contained in Blocks L and M) by the Federal Government to Brunei Darusalam in March 2009 was unconstitutional because such an act of ceding territory of a State (of Sabah) in the federation of Malaysia required the consent of the State Legislative Assembly and the Conference of Rulers.
This was stipulated in Article 2 of the Malaysian Constitution, Yong stressed in a statement.
The only one time that such a consent under Article 2 was given was on March 8, 1984 when the Federal Territory of Labuan Enactment 1984 was passed in the State Legislative Assembly.
It was one of the major acts of the then state government that caused its own downfall the following year, he said.
Yong added that the territory of Malaysia consists of the territories of all the states of Malaysia and it was only when Sabah (then North Borneo) together with Sarawak , Singapore and Malaya formed Malaysia in 1963, that the Malaysia territorial map was enlarged to include the Borneo states and their territories that came with historical right.
This territory included the Sipadan and Ligitan islands and the seas now known as Blocks L and M in the Petronas off shore plans, he claimed.
He said that in the case of the territorial dispute with Indonesia over the Sipadan and Ligitan Islands in the 1990s, the case was referred to the International Court of Justice ( World Court ) that ruled in favour of Malaysia .
“Ex-prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed had disclosed that Malaysia’s right to Blocks L and M is based on historical right and that the loss of these blocks could cost Malaysia RM320 billion in oil in an area as large as the combined size of the states of Perlis, Penang, Melaka and Selangor,” he said.