Michael Tiang gives his stands on Sarawak to be called “Region”

suppadmin | April 9, 2021

Political secretary to the chief minister, Michael Tiang said he would very much appreciated if the federal cabinet would make a decision to refer Sarawak as a “region” instead of a state.

He said any decisions would now refer Sarawak as a “region” or “Wilayah” in BM should not be viewed as an exercise to upgrade the status of Sarawak in the Federation of Malaysia but a rightful restoration of Sarawak’s original status as one of the founding partners of the Federation of Malaysia in 1963. In 1963, Sarawak did not join the federation of Malaya to form Malaysia but Sarawak was forming Malaysia together with North Borneo, Malaya and Singapore as a region, which should not in any way be equated with the states in the Peninsula.

“Some politicians are out there to attempt to confuse the public by comparing Wilayah Sarawak with the 3 Wilayah Persekutuan. The 3 wilayah persekutuan were all created and gazetted as special zones for administrative and off shore port purposes directly governed by the federal government while Sarawak is a region, not one of the 13 states, entitled to special rights and autonomy in governance, immigration, oil and gas, land and many other aspects. I fully support the views expressed earlier by Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah, the Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister that by merely referring Sarawak as a region is insufficient. More importantly, the federal constitution must be amended to incorporate Sabah and Sarawak as regions and not states” he added.

With the status of a region in Malaysia, he believed the new constitutional amendments must also define expressly the special status and rights of Sabah and Sarawak to important matters like national wealth sharing and parliamentary representative so as to differentiate Sarawak from other states in Malaya.