Sabah BN Youth wings press Putrajaya on rights

The youth wings of three Sabah BN parties have signed a MoU to work together in fighting for their rights in Sabah.

KOTA KINABALU: The youth wings of three Sabah Barisan Nasional (BN) parties want the federal government to consider various issues which have hogged the limelight since the 50th anniversary last year of Sabah and Sarawak in Malaysia.

These include a scholarship quota for Sabah students, 20% oil royalty and representation on the Petronas board for Sabah and Sarawak.

“We also want the power to operate and manage new oil wells discovered,” said Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) Youth chief Jake Jikulin Nointin.

“We are no longer going to fill up the empty spaces at the back during BN Youth meetings in Kuala Lumpur,” he said.

Other issues, for Putrajaya to work on are:

• Borneonisation of the state governments in Sabah and Sarawak;
• The growing number of illegal immigrants;
• issue of MyKads held by illegal immigrants;
• A collective 35% of seats in Parliament for the Borneo states; and
• The scrapping of the “Others” race category in federal government forms.

Jake was giving details on the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed on Saturday in Kota Kinabalu between the youth wings of the three Orang Asal parties in the BN in tribute to their common origin.

The MoU was also signed by Upko Youth chief Arthur Sen and PBRS Youth chief Arthur Joseph Kurup.

The only other local party in Sabah BN is the multi-racial but Chinese-based Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

“Since we are all fighting for the same issues, it is better for us to come together and forge a united front under a common logo,” said Jake.

He denied that the youth wings were challenging their parties in BN on various issues.

It’s more about supplementing and complementing their efforts.

“It cannot be denied that after 51 years of the Federation, the position of Sabah and Sarawak is not as equals of the peninsula,” said Jake.

The MoU will help address this imbalance while bringing the youths together to speak with one voice on issues affecting Sabah and Sarawak.

So far, the issues being raised now by the BN youths have been brought up by non-governmental organisations and local opposition parties.

Pakatan Rakyat (PR) also wants a 20% oil royalty for Sabah and Sarawak, up from the present 5% in effect since 1976 when the oil agreements were signed between the Federal Government and Sabah and Sarawak.

Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), which holds the three-party alliance together, has even gone so far as saying that “anything and everything can be discussed in Sabah and Sarawak except the idea of independence”.