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3 Sabah-based BN component Youth wings call for oil royalty hike
Youth wings from three Sabah-based Barisan Nasional (BN) component parties joined hands to put pressure for immediate review of the Sabah oil royalty.
The youth exco from Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS), United Pasokmomogun KadazanDusunMurut Organisation (UPKO) and Parti Bersatu Rakyat Sabah (PBRS) issued a strong statement demanding for the current 5% royalty to be increased to 20%.
“We believe that, together, Sabah and Sarawak can have a louder voice in the matter. We need to start somewhere and it so happens that the three of us are good friends…let’s get the ball rolling,” said PBS Youth chief Datuk Jake Nointin.
Nointin, when speaking at a joint press conference with Upko Youth chief Arthur Sen and PBRS Youth chief Arthur Kurup, said they made the call supporting a recent demand for a similar review by the Chief Minister of Sarawak.
They said the three Youth movements decided to come together as one voice to further strengthen the calls that had long been made by their respective parties.
Nointin said the call for higher royalty was justified as East Malaysia lagged very much behind in terms of development and was in need of a much bigger allocation to improve its basic infrastructure.
As a temporary solution, the group suggested that the 5% royalty given to the federal government be redirected to the state government, in addition to the 5% already paid to Sabah.
“This will increase the royalty received by the State to 10% and this can be done without amending the Petroleum Act.
“This will immediately give Sabah additional funds for its development,” said Sen.
On a separate issue, they also called for a Parliamentary Select Committee to be set up to assess the implementation of the Malaysia Agreement 1963 and 18/20 Points Memorandum.
Among issues that should be looked into are Borneonisation of civil services in East Malaysia and the allocation of seats for each member of the Federation of Malaysia in Parliament.
“We suggest the committee members be appointed from among the government and opposition parliamentarians from Sabah and Sarawak as well as from Peninsular Malaysia.
“Their findings shall be presented in Parliament together with recommendations with regard to seat allocation, in line with the spirit of the Cobbold Report.
“Currently, the seat allocation for Sabah and Sarawak combined represents less than 25% of total seats in Parliament.
“This is not in line with the Malaysia Agreement and the Federal Constitution, which states that the seat proportion for Sabah and Sarawak must be similar, but not less than the initial quota allocated.”
