State Assemblyman Batu Kitang, Lo Khere Chiang told off Zaid Ibrahim that the oil wells were found in Sarawak\u2019s seabeds belongs to Sarawak as our interests are being safeguarded by the incorporation of the Malaysia Agreement 1963, an International Treaty registered with the United Nations. These are entrenched in the Federal constitution and therefore all Sarawak\u2019s sovereign rights to its natural resources are well protected within the supreme documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was responding to former DAP member, Zaid Ibrahim who arrogantly stated that with six more oil wells found and Sarawak instantly making its claim, Wakil Rakyat from Tanah Melayu must not sleep and let Sarawak get away with its latest claim<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“As an established lawyer, I am surprised that he is not well versed with the Federal constitution and the laws of Sarawak before Malaysia Day which are still applicable after that,” said Lo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He explained that on the matter of Exclusive Economic Zone ( EEZ), Sarawak has dominion, meaning legal ownership, economic and property rights of its oil, gas and other minerals in its Continental Shelf as a coastal state under the Oil Mining Ordinance 1958. Therefore Sarawak has rights to the EEZ under the agreements signed. Sarawak came together to form Malaysia. We are an equal partner in Malaysia. The OMO1958 was not repealed by PDA74 and therefore as an equal partner, we have dominion rights in the EEZ. On top of that Petros signed a commercial agreement with Petronas on a 50-50 basis for any oil found within Sarawak waters, thanks to our Premier, YAB Abang Jo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sarawak, he added, is poor and underdeveloped (still is) but it was asked to give 95% of its oil wealth up to get only 5% back for almost 50 consecutive years. That is not sharing. That is \u2018rampas\u2019. The grossly unfair Federal to Sarawak 95:5 ratio on our oil resources gives Malaya the illusion that it \u201cowns\u201d Sarawak\u2019s natural resources. The law in Sarawak is clear on ownership of natural resources so back in 1976 Federal had to think of something else to take control of Sabah and Sarawak\u2019s oil. So they came up with the plan to ask Chief Ministers to sign agreements under PDA74 to say they agree to this 95:5 ratio. Our then Chief Minister, the late Tun Abdul Rahman Yakub was asked to sign such an agreement without the legitimate approval by the Sarawak State Assembly for a meager annual 5% “cash consideration\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lo said the approval of the Council Negeri is imperative and PDA1974 does not have the approval of the highest law-making body in the state. As of now, TSA2012 has yet to be approved by the State Legislative Assembly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
” I fully support my colleague in GPS Dato Idris Buang who called Zaid to respect the law. Idris Buang had pointed out that PDA 1974 was never meant to surrender Sarawak\u2019s sovereignty of its natural resources particularly oil and gas or other related minerals to the Federal Government as PDA 74 was and still is subservient and subordinate to the Federal Constitution. Thus before Zaid stakes more claims on Sarawak\u2019s rich resources, he should go back to the Commercial Arrangement Agreement circa 2020 with Petronas which was actually a mutual arrangement in order to have a win-win situation for all parties so as not to disrupt the oil and gas as Petronas is already established in Sarawak, ” he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Together with the collection of more than Rm8 billion from SST on petroleum products every three years, this should help shore up our state coffers. This is all due to the hard work and efforts of our YAB Abang Johari, Premier of Sarawak. We are not greedy and we do think of the good of our country and so we have not asked for amends to our rights over the past 49 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every year RM80 billion has been siphoned from Sarawak and together with Sabah, we contribute 60% of the country\u2019s oil but the federal government has been using our natural resources for the economic benefits of Malaya.The Borneo states have been left poor for the last 50 years with no major highway, no basic facilities in rural areas and with dilapidated schools and hospitals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He hoped that all Sarawakians learn our history to protect what belongs to us and not let arrogant Malayans walk all over us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
State Assemblyman Batu Kitang, Lo Khere Chiang told off Zaid Ibrahim that the oil wells were found in Sarawak\u2019s seabeds belongs to Sarawak as our interests are being safeguarded by the incorporation of the Malaysia Agreement 1963, an International Treaty registered with the United Nations. These are entrenched in the Federal constitution and therefore all Sarawak\u2019s sovereign rights to its natural resources are well protected within the supreme documents. He was responding to former DAP member, Zaid Ibrahim who arrogantly stated that with six more oil wells found and SarawakRead More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30878,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,1,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31062"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31062"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31063,"href":"http:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31062\/revisions\/31063"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}