Kelantan maintains it's still not paid oil royalty from Putrajaya

 

The Kelantan government maintained that it has yet to be paid oil royalty by Putrajaya.

Kelantan Menteri Besar Ahmad Yakob's office, in a statement, explained that the RM400 million channelled to the state which Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz mentioned was a "goodwill payment".

"The RM400 million given to Kelantan in 2020 and 2021 are goodwill payments by the federal government and not oil royalty.

"The Kelantan government is still in the process of negotiating with the federal government on the granting of oil royalty by the federal government to Kelantan," it said.

Zafrul had previously said Putrajaya won't be paying oil royalty to Kelantan and will continue with the system of channelling "goodwill payments" to the state.

Zafrul had said the RM200 million a year paid to Kelantan was many-fold higher than the RM28 million paid in 2018.

Kelantan has long pushed for the institutionalisation of revenue from the oil that is extracted from the state's coast.

This is because a "goodwill payment" would be at the discretion of the federal government and not an obligation. - Mkini