Sim Kiang Chiok
KUCHING: The Sarawak government should consider channelling the RM2 billion sales tax collected from Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas) to help Sarawakians during this Covid-19 pandemic, says Sarawak United Peoples’ Party (SUPP) Stakan branch chairman Sim Kiang Chiok.
“It is timely that this sales tax is used to assist Sarawakians in these difficult economic times to prevent us from falling into prolonged economic recession,” he said in a statement yesterday.
He said Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg never wavered from imposing the sales tax, and along with state Attorney General Datuk Talat Mahmood Abdul Rashid and Assistant Minister of Law, State-Federal Relations and Project Monitoring Datuk Sharifah Hasidah Sayeed Azman Ghazali, had ensured victory at every turn during this saga.
“Their first win was making Petronas apply for mining operations permits and licence from Petroleum Sarawak (Petros), which manages all operations on behalf of the state government.
“Now that all (oil and Gas) companies operating in Sarawak are all in line, we believe the future will be better for our children and future generation,” Sim added.
He, however, said SUPP Stakan took offence at the opposition, who had been active in the media making accusations, especially at the expense of Sharifah Hasidah.
“These cheap shots and creative writings are getting the people riled up for no reason whatsoever and are really an unwelcome distraction to all Sarawakians at this crucial time when it is beginning to reopen businesses whilst fending off the Covid-19 pandemic.”
He thus called upon all Sarawakians to come forward as ‘Sarawakians for Sarawak’ and make Sarawak first in their agenda and reject baseless gutter politics, which was designed to earn cheap publicity for a basically unknown entity in Sarawak politics.
SUPP Stakan thanked Abang Johari for his recent clarification and hoped the opposition would come forward like former opposition member Puncak Borneo MP Willie Mongin, and ‘put an end to this vicious fear mongering’.
“We echo the statement of Sarawak Legislative Assembly Speaker Datuk Amar Mohd Asfia Awang Nassar that none of our MA63 or OMO (Oil Mining Ordinance) rights had been eroded. Any change to the status must first be proposed by the MA63 committee which is made up of bipartisan elected members from GPS (Gabungan Parti Sarawak), PKR (Parti Keadilan Rakyat), DAP (Democratic Action Party), and PSB (Parti Sarawak Bersatu) before the DUN can even debate any changes to Sarawak’s rights and not any individual,” said Sim.
He noted that no debate, thus far, had taken place and no bill had been passed in the DUN to give up any of rights including the state’s oil and gas rights to Petronas.
Hence, he urged Sarawakians to take cognisance to the fact that only the DUN could change the state’s rights regarding oil and gas mining for which ‘the OMO precedes the Petroleum Development Act (PDA) 1974 and will take precedence and prevail as it was reflected in the decisions made in both the federal and high courts’.