Dr Sim Kui Hian
KUCHING: Sarawak United People’s Party president Datuk Dr Sim Kui Hian described Budget 2020 as Peninsular Malaysia-biased, saying that Pakatan Harapan (PH) had failed to keep their promises as they had only provided 16 per cent of the total national budget to Sabah and Sarawak.
“Again it is a Malaya-centric budget with PH failing to keep their promise of 30 per cent (of the national budget) to Sabah and Sarawak and 20 per cent oil and gas royalty to Sarawak,” said the Minister for Local Government and Housing.
Dr Sim, who is also Batu Kawah assemblyman, said there was nothing that fellow Sarawakians could do about it but to adopt a “wait-and-see attitude”.
“Sarawak tengok sahaja (Sarawakian can only observe),” he said.
“Again, they (PH) failed in their duty to provide the necessary for Sarawak to be as developed as Malaya (Peninsular Malaysia). It is time for them to give back the autonomy without further delay so that Sarawak can get on with the necessary mammoth tasks by ourselves, immediately,” he said.
Despite Dr Sim’s claim, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng announced that Sabah and Sarawak are to receive the largest portion of development expenditures amounting to RM5.2 billion and RM4.4 billion, respectively, for 2020.
“These allocations demonstrate that the Pakatan Harapan government prioritises the needs of Sabah and Sarawak,” Lim said when tabling Budget 2020, themed ‘Driving Growth and Equitable Outcomes Towards Shared Prosperity’ in Parliament today.
Overall, RM297 billion or 18.4 per cent of the GDP will be allocated for Budget 2020, out of which 81.1 per cent or RM241 billion is for operating expenditures while the balance of RM56 billion is for development expenditures.