Dr. Sim: Sarawak is a missing chapter in PH’s Budget 2019
Besides announcing a general allocation of RM4 billion development funds for Sarawak, the Pakatan Harapan’s maiden budget for 2019 has not much to say about Sarawak. In fact, the word “Sarawak” was only being mentioned 5 times by Lim Guan Eng, the Finance Minister who presented the national budget today at Dewan Rakyat, said President of SUPP, Datuk Dr. Sim Kui Hian.
Dr. Sim pointed out that this is a glaring contrast to the previous government in practice whereby the previous government would always designate a separate chapter or section to specifically list down all the allocations of funds, benefits, policies and projects for Sarawak.
“Sarawak’s equal partner status in the federation of Malaysia is untenable. There is a Chapter 3 of the Inter-Governmental Committee (IGC) Report 1962 dedicating the whole chapter to insert all the safeguards for Sarawak rights and position when forming Malaysia. Accordingly our Federal Constitution also provides specific chapters and articles to stipulate special financial, rights and autonomy for both Sabah and Sarawak.
During the GE14 campaign, PH also set aside a separate “Pillar” of promises for Sabah and Sarawak in their Buku Harapan that promised to ensure prosperity to the people of Sabah and Sarawak by closing the development gap between the Peninsula and the two Borneo States as well as specific attention would be given education and healthcare. Today, in Budget 2019, Sarawak has been shrunk to a status of a mere state without its own chapter”, he said.
With the operational expenditures for education and healthcare are expected to be increased to RM55.1 billions and RM26.5 billions respectively, Dr. Sim said it is totally unknown to Sarawakians on whether we are part of the beneficiaries of the increased expenditures or we are being marginalized in 2019.
He added that the Budget 2019 therefore constitutes a prelude that sounds so bleak to Sarawakians that we cannot see any glimpse of hope in the forthcoming meetings of the Steering Committee conducted by the PH government which was meant to review and restore Sabah and Sarawak’s status as equal partners in Malaysia.
He said maybe we should listen to our fellow Sarawakians response.
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