Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng today questioned the reported unhappiness of a Sarawak minister over the state's allocation in the 2020 federal budget, which was announced yesterday.
Speaking to reporters in Parliament, Lim pointed out that Sarawak ranked second after Sabah in terms of development allocations at RM4.4 billion, including RM32 million in a special grant under Article 112(D) of the Federal Constitution.
"They will always say they are not happy...it is very difficult to satisfy them.
"If they are already ranked second but remain […] unsatisfied, then how about the other states?
"I hope that they can consider how they are now getting what was never given by the old government," said Lim, who earlier led a Budget 2020 briefing for all Pakatan Harapan elected representatives.
He reiterated that the special grant for Sarawak had never been reviewed since 1969, and the government had moved to double the amount for this year.
"Under the previous government, they can be satisfied although they received less.
"Now that they are getting more, why are they not satisfied? That I don't understand," he said.
Sarawak’s Local Government and Housing Minister Sim Kui Hian yesterday claimed that the government had failed to keep its promise to Sarawakians, describing the 2020 federal budget as "Malaya-centric."
Online portal Free Malaysia Today quoted Sim, who is also Sarawak United Peoples’ Party (SUPP) president, as saying that Sarawak's RM4.4 billion and Sabah's RM5.2 billion allocation only make up 17.1 percent of the overall RM56 billion development budget.
FMT also quoted Sarawak Association for Peoples’ Aspirations (Sapa) president Dominique Ng who described Sarawak's allocations as "peanuts" compared to the amount of income they earned from the state’s oil and gas as well as taxes.
Lim yesterday tabled an RM297.02 billion budget, comprising RM241.02 billion in operations expenditure and RM56 billion in development expenditure. - Mkini
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