A combination of two images taken from the 2019 and 2020 budget as provided by Wong.
KUCHING: Parti Sarawak Bersatu president Dato Sri Wong Soon Koh has insisted that Sarawak does not have a Contingency Fund in its 2020 State Budget in spite of Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas declaring that there is.
Referring to photographs of pages from what he said were budget speeches tabled in the State Legislative Assembly (DUN), Wong said in a press statement today that while there was a provision of RM250 million in the 2019 budget, there was none for this year.
“As shown here in the photographic images taken of the budget speeches delivered by the Chief Minister, which appear on page 40 for Budget 2019 and page 25 for Budget 2020, clearly there is no contingency fund provided for Budget 2020,” said the Bawang Assan assemblyman.
“Only a sum of RM6.4 billion is appropriated to finance the various development programmes and projects.
“I advise YB Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah to look at these two images taken from the 2019 and 2020 budget and not to mislead the public that there is RM500 million Contingency Fund provided in Budget 2020,” said Wong.
Uggah had said in a press statement earlier today that RM500 million was allocated for the 2020 Contingency Fund after Wong yesterday challenged him to show to the public that the DUN had approved the fund last year.
Wong and Uggah, who was appointed as Second Finance Minister after Wong quit the post last year, have been engaged in a war of words after Wong questioned how the state government was financing the Sarawakku Sayang Special Assistance (BKSS) packages to help Sarawakians weather the economic slum resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Wong had said that the state did not have a Contingency Fund for this year.