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Sri Wong Soon Koh Fact
Story updated May 5 at 6.16 p.m.
KUCHING: The Sarawak State Legislative Assembly (DUN), to be held on May 11, should be extended to a full week for DUN to review the proposed supplemental budget, as well as to ask questions to the State Finance Ministry about the 2019 budget now showing the Petronas deal will be wholly eliminated by billions of ringgit, says Parti Bersatu Sarawak (PSB) president Dato Sri Wong Soon Koh.
Responding to the explanation of the Assistant Minister for Legal Affairs, State-Federal Relations and Project Monitoring, Datuk Sharifah Hasidah Sayeed Aman Ghazali, about the agreement reached between the government of Sarawak and Petronas, he pointed out that it was necessary to analyze the facts.
“Sharifah Hasidah alleges that my statement ‘the O&G (oil and gas) advance tax for two years (for 2019 and 2020) totaled RM6.775 trillion was settled for a very small amount of RM2 trillion” is “completely false and misleading” .
“First, the full sum of the O&G advance tax for 2019 and 2020 was presented in the DUN as part of the budget for the two years. The two sums that totaled RM6.775 billion are on the DUN record, in black and white.
“Is Sharifah Hasidah challenging the truth of the DUN records? I don’t think she has the audacity to do it, “he said.
Soon, Koh said he could only assume that Sharifah Hasidah claimed that his statement was “completely false and misleading” because the agreement between the Sarawak and Petronas government was only regarding the Year 2019 and not for the two years, a fact that only was revealed to him by his statement
However, he noted that even if RM2 billion was just the payment for 2019, the deal was still too small, citing the 2019 Prime Minister’s President’s speech on the matter.
“On page 37, paragraph 44, the Chief Minister stated:” The calculation of State revenue in 2019 is made up of tax revenue, which is expected to be RM5.268 billion, or 50 percent of total revenue expected in 2019, includes the following: RM4,462 billion of sales tax, of which RM3,897 billion are from petroleum products; … “
“Does the Sarawak government now deny the truth of what the Chief Minister presented to the DUN for the 2019 Budget? Is Sharifah Hasidah saying that the Chief Minister misled the August House when he presented the budget for approval? Soon Koh asked.
He claimed that instead of RM3,897 million, the state only received RM2 billion from Petronas after winning the court case.
Sharifah Hasidah told the press that these RM2 billion did not include the State Sales Tax (SST) on petroleum products paid by other oil companies such as Shell, Murphy Oil, Pertamina and others.
“I say that it is very misleading because I can remember that all those other companies paid their SST and that their amounts were minimal, in the tens of millions.
“I now ask the Sarawak government to transparently disclose how much TSV in petroleum products that Shell, Murphy Oil, Pertamina and others paid for the year 2019. When the government discloses the facts to corroborate what Sharifah Hasidah said, I believe that the public could see that the bulk of the expected revenue of RM3.897 billion was due to Petronas, “he said.
Koh soon believed that if that were the case, then the Sarawak government owed the DUN and the Sarawak people an explanation of why Petronas was allowed to pay just RM2 billion, when in reality it owed some RM3.8 billion.
He also believed that the state should enforce the total SST payment for 2019, which should be RM3.8 billion according to the budget speech of the Chief Minister.
“If the state sued Petronas for less than RM3.8 billion, then we are owed an explanation for why the state did not seek the full amount against Petronas, the full amount that the Chief Minister stated in his budget speech.
“Sharifah Hasidah also alludes to” Sarawak’s rights protected by the Federal Constitution, the 1963 Malaysian Agreement and the Recommendations of the 1962 Intergovernmental Committee Report. “
“Sharifah Hasidah further stated that” the GPS State Government remains firmly committed to upholding Sarawak’s sovereign rights to the State’s oil and gas resources. “
“This raises the question of why the GPS government capitulated and renounced our state rights to question the validity of the Oil Development Act of 1974? This question was specifically expressed by me in my press statement that Sharifah Hasidah intended to answer. Why did the GPS government and the Chief Minister not address this fundamental problem?
More importantly, what agreement was reached behind closed doors between the GPS government and Petronas for Sarawak to give up its oil rights in exchange for a meager payment of RM2 billion, which Petronas was already required to pay by court order? Sarawak received nothing in exchange for giving up our oil rights, “he said.
Koh also soon reminded the GPS government not to tell people that it was a vague promise that Sarawak would have a stake in some commercial industries in the future or in the future, adding: “It would be ridiculous and completely foolish to sacrifice rights of the State for some vague indefinite promise of participation in the future. “
“Didn’t the GPS continually scream that the 1974 PDA was invalid as far as Sarawak is concerned? Weren’t there cries for sovereignty over our oil rights that PDA 1974 was supposed to have eroded illegally?
“However, in this so-called” settlement “with Petronas for which Petronas paid a fraction of what is owed to Sarawak, why did GPS find it necessary to sacrifice Sarawak’s rights to challenge the 1974 PDA?”
Soon Koh noted that there was a deafening silence from the GPS on Sarawak’s rights to challenge the Oil Development Act (PDA) of 1974 and the Territorial Seas Act (TSA), as well as the rights of the 1963 Malaysian Agreement, and He wondered if it was because his MPs were in the cabinet of the federal government.
“There has been a notable change since GPS joined the government led by Perikatan Nasional (PN) and that is evident to everyone. I anticipate that GPS members will jump up and down to say there should be no politics during the Covid-19 crisis. I say that the GPS cannot hide behind the Covid-19 skirt when such critical issues are at stake.
“When Sarawak’s rights are sacrificed for no reason, when those rights were never questioned when the state pursued the Petronas debt under a court order, the GPS government must explain to us why they have withdrawn our rights.
Those are our rights, the rights that belong to each and every Sarawakian. Those rights do not belong to the GPS so they can give them away as they wish, ”said Soon Koh.
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