It is very obvious from the 2-hour length of Budget 2019 speech given by Lim Guan Eng, the Finance Minister of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government, the status of Sarawak is definitely not one of the equal partners to the federation of Malaysia. In fact, we have been downgraded again with no efforts being made by the PH government to banish inequality between the 2 Borneo States and the Peninsula, said SUPP Youth Central, Michael Tiang.

Tiang reckoned that with Sarawak’s annual contribution to the national coffers of about RM80 billions of crude oil (at the rate of USD70 per barrel), we are being allocated only a meager amount of RM4 billion development fund in PH’s Budget 2019. The PH government is not paying us our due from the national revenues. Does that mean only oil and gas from Sarawak are valuable to the PH government, but not the Sarawak people?

He pointed out that in PH’s Buku Harapan, they promised that they will ensure the connecting highway to be built in Sarawak and Sabah by allocating “up to 30 per cent of the budget allocation for each year will be devoted to Sabah and Sarawak…” There is definitely no such signs of 30% allocated funds being set aside for Sabah and Sarawak as promised. In fact the Pakatan Harapan made a big U turn on Sarawakians in their Budget 2019.

While devising a new departure levy for travelers departing Malaysia for next year, the PH government has devised nothing to open up the sky for Sarawak to have more international flight connectivities so as to boost tourism and foreign investments in this region. The restriction in flight connectivity is one of the inequality that Sarawak suffers for decades after being part of the federation.

Sarawakians, Tiang felt, should therefore question the integrity of this new federal government in its present approach of the national budget which I call it is a blatant breach of the spirit of our Federal Constitution and the Malaysia Agreement 1963 by the federal government. Through the Budget 2019 the PH government has downgraded Sarawak’s position as an equal partner in Malaysia to a mere state that entitles to no special attention and no special grants. In fact, PH’s maiden budget constitutes more like a political punishment on Sarawak for being an opposition state.

“I would like to remind the Pakatan Harapan government that there is nothing wrong for more and more Sarawakians to talk about Sarawak exiting from the Federation of Malaysia when the federal government has not only forgotten its role as a steward to the equal partners in the federation but also to continue to deny Sarawak’s entitlement to its share of national revenues as an equal partner,” he added.

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