Oil royalty: ‘We don’t need to beg’

Sabah STAR says that Raja Petra's argument about oil royalty must be true because Putrajaya has not branded him a liar.

KOTA KINABALU: State Reform Party (STAR) has not taken kindly to Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s accusation that opposition’s talks about increasing the oil royalty is just “political gimmick”.

STAR deputy chairman, Daniel John Jambun, said: “The way I look at it, Najib has handled the issue of increased oil royalty very poorly, judging from the way he made his remarks in Putatan last week.”

“In essence, Najib said that the demand for increased royalty is just an opposition gimmick and that it is another empty promise of the opposition.

“He is also saying that 20% or even 50% royalty doesn’t make economic sense because at this level of royalty, allocations to Sabah would have to be cut.

“He is also saying that the opposition’s promises in the last election haven’t been fulfilled and that the opposition also wants to reduce petrol prices.

“These are very old and boring rehashed answers which are easy to rebut,” said Jambun.

He said the demand for increased oil royalty is not a gimmick but something which will definitely be implemented when Barisan Nasional loses power.

“This is not an empty promise… and it makes a lot of economic sense for Sabah, Sarawak and Terengganu because with that level of royalty, we won’t need federal allocation anymore,” he added.

Jambun said the allocations Sabah was getting today are just crumbs compared to the huge amount the state is giving to the federal government every year, besides the billions of annual taxes collected from Sabah.

“How silly to say that we haven’t fulfilled our promises in the last election because we didn’t take over Putrajaya yet. If the people vote us in, we can implement.

“In fact, it is the BN which failed to fulfil a lot of promises and created a lot of mess since coming to power so long ago.

“I have listed these in my long list of scandals and wasteful abuses of the people’s money – by the hundreds of billions – published in online portals under the title ‘Najib should clarify financial scandals.’ I am still waiting for a reply.”

RPK’s reasoning logical

Jambun also pointed out that the BN also needs to answer Raja Petra Kamaruddin’s (RPK) argument on this issue which he had elaborated in Malaysia Today under the title “How East Malaysia and Terengganu were robbed of their wealth.”

He said Raja Petra’s reasoning and logic about the whole thing is very simple.

Essentially, the blogger said the oil and gas belongs 100% to the states.

Jambun said that Raja Petra made some very powerful statements which, if they are wrong, could land him into a lot of trouble, probably, for treason.

“But if he is wrong, how come Putrajaya had not responded with a hue and cry about Raja Petra being a liar or being seditious? Why?

“If it is true that Sabah, Sarawak and Terengganu have been cheated and robbed in broad daylight through the use of the Petroleum Development Act, the law should be amended or repealed for causing us great injustice and financial losses for so many decades.

“Najib’s argument that the demand for higher oil royalty is not making economic sense is pure nonsense because, morally it is our oil, our God-given resource and was promised to us in the Malaysia Agreement.

“If the federal government wants part of it, then a reasonable percentage should be left for Sabah to enable it to develop itself, not take almost everything and leave five percent back, which is just crumbs.

“How much is five percent really? How do we know that what we are getting is really five percent or just one percent because the Petronas account report is supposed to be confidential?

“In a statement published on Feb 15, I said that with a 50% royalty, Sabah won’t even need anymore development allocation from the federal government, because we would then be able also to take care of not only our physical development but also our health, education, and even security needs.

“We would be having revenues in the tens of billions per year, so why would we have to beg from Kuala Lumpur?”

BN doesn’t wants Sabah to progress

“We would then be having an annual budget of RM20 billion instead of the current RM4 billion, which the BN leaders are calling ‘a huge budget’

“If the federal government is worried that it would lose some of the revenues it is now collecting, then how about the fact that Sabah is now very poor because Kuala Lumpur is robbing its resources?

“Remember, it is not a case of us taking money from the federal government, but a case of the federal government robbing us of what rightly belongs to us.”

Jambun assured he was not talking about oil royalty in isolation but in the context of the rights of Sabah, Sarawak and Terengganu.

“Why is the BN so reluctant to give the higher oil royalty?” he asked.

“Why can’t BN just say, ‘OK, we will also give you 20% royalty if we are voted back into power’?

“Maybe there is only one reason: BN doesn’t want Sabah to progress too much because if it is too developed it will overtake the Peninsula and Putrajaya will no longer be able to treat it like a beggar.”