SABAH OIL ROYALTY

Sabah State Reform Party (STAR) on Wednesday said that if Sabah were to receive 50 per cent oil royalty from Petronas, it would not even need Federal allocation to develop the state.

Its Deputy Chairman, Daniel John Jambun said this in response to a statement by Sabah BN Secretary Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan who said that Sabah would be compromised if Federal allocation or funds under the Malaysia Plan is reduced so as to pay the proposed 20 per cent oil royalty. 

"Abdul Rahman forgot that under the Tenth Malaysia Plan (10MP), Sabah and Sarawak combined, are getting only about RM9 billion as compared to about RM100 billion for the Peninsula."At this rate of allocation, Sabah is actually getting less than RM1 billion per year throughout the five-year Malaysia Plan."As such, the Federal allocations are not much and hardly fulfil all the development needs of Sabah," he said in a statement. 

Jambun said that if the opposition in Sabah forms the next State Government, it would be demanding for the right to collect and manage its own revenues, including taxes.He said taxes from Sabah amounts between RM15b and RM20b annually."So, just imagine how much we are losing at the moment," he said. 

Combine the taxes with the retention of income from 50 per cent oil royalty, he said income for Sabah annually would be in the tens of billions.With such huge revenue base, he said Sabah would be able to pay its own education, health and even security expenditure. "In fact, Sabah would be a very rich state and would achieve a developed status within a decade or two," he added.In this respect, it is a pity that BN leaders are still outdated in its thinking in that Sabah must depend on Federal Government forever to develop the state, when the fact is that real solution is right in Sabah's own backyard. 

Jambun said that there are also other income resources that should rightly belong to Sabah but have already been taken over by Kuala Lumpur such as revenue from the Immigration Department.He reminded that 20 Points gave Sabah the guarantee that immigration powers would remain in Sabah's hands."From this we can easily explain why Sabah and Sarawak are the poorest and second poorest states respectively in Malaysia," he said. 

He said the situation of the two states is made even worse when compared with Brunei, which stayed out from Malaysia at the 11th hour in a dispute over oil revenues, and Singapore, which opted to leave the Federation of Malaysia in 1965 after two years.To this, he asked why should Sabah and Sarawak accept an oil deal which Brunei was not willing to accept. 

He said that a careful study of the total revenue picture in Sabah and Sarawak would show that Malaya is treating and exploiting the two states as if it were its colonies.He said this must be brought to the attention of the United Nation's (UN) 24-Nation Committee on De-colonisation. 

This is the committee that asked Britain to leave Sabah, Sarawak, Brunei and Singapore," he said.

"A comparison of oil-and-gas revenue sharing between producing provinces/states/regions and central authorities elsewhere in the world would show that Putrajaya is virtually stealing, at gunpoint, the energy resources that rightfully belong to Sabah and Sarawak for their industrialisation and economic development."The raw materials are now being channelled mostly to non-oil states in Malaysia by way of oil refineries and petrochemical plants, among others. 

By right, oil royalty or no oil royalty, the oil and gas produced from Sabah and Sarawak should stay within the two states for their industrialisation and economic development, for downstream diversification and for socio-economic integration.