KOTA KINABALU: Former Sabah assistant finance minister Kenny Chua agreed with a Perikatan Nasional assemblyman that Warisan president Shafie Apdal had tried to impose the 5% sales tax on petroleum products when he was chief minister but did not pursue it.
Chua said it was only after Warisan became the opposition resulting from the fall of the Pakatan Harapan government that Shafie showed determination to pursue the matter.
He concurred with STAR’s Tulid assemblywoman Flovia Ng that this was because Shafie did not want to offend former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
“The state legislative assembly during the Warisan-led government had approved the decision to impose the sales tax but it was never pursued let alone implemented,” he said in a statement here today.
“It was only this year after we (Sabah government) became the opposition that Shafie made a statement that he wanted to sue Petronas if it failed to pay the state sales tax (SST) on petroleum products due to Sabah.
“Many people were wondering why Shafie didn’t aggressively pursue it the moment his government came to power. After all, this has long been an important matter to all Sabahans.”
Chua was commenting on a statement by Warisan’s Merotai assemblyman Sarifuddin Hatta who had said the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah-led government should be thankful to Shafie for the RM1.25 billion sales tax it expects from Petronas.
Sabah Deputy Chief Minister Jeffrey Kitingan, who is also STAR president, had previously announced the state government was expected to collect the 5% sales tax from petroleum products from Petronas.
But according to Sarifuddin, the 5% sales tax plan started in 2018 when Shafie was still chief minister and was part of the federal-state talks between the chief ministers of Sabah and Sarawak and Mahathir.
He said a committee chaired by Mahathir was supposed to decide in March but due to the power transition at the federal level, all matters were postponed.
In response, Ng had yesterday countered that Warisan should stop claiming credit for other people’s hard work, saying Shafie did not act on it when he was in power.
According to Ng, Shafie did not implement the tax as he was dealing with Mahathir at the time, and to go after Petronas would be akin to going against the then prime minister.
Chua said Sarifuddin should not have embarrassed himself by trying to glorify his boss, Shafie, adding the former should have explained why they were silent when Mahathir snuffed out Sabah’s hope of having its oil royalty payment raised to 20% under the PH administration.
“Please don’t politicise this matter. The present state government has proven its capability in getting what Sabah rightfully deserves. The Warisan-led state government then had failed miserably in this,” he said. - FMT
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