YONG: Sabah oil revenues alone exceed federal funds to Sabah

KOTA KINABALU - In commenting on news reports of Federal Minister Datuk Rahman Dahlan that federal funds to Sabah amount to 10 times of oil royalty, SAPP President Datuk Yong Teck Lee today said that to compare oil royalties received by Sabah with the federal funds disbursed for Sabah is incomplete and misleading.

"The correct comparison is how much oil has been taken from Sabah compared with the 5% given back to Sabah. If the 5% royalties given to Sabah from 2002 to 2013 is RM5.8 billion, then it means that the Federal government, Petronas and its associates have derived RM110 billion in the same period. This RM110 billion alone is already more than the entire RM81 billion federal funds that Rahman said has been spent on Sabah in the same period. Datuk Rahman should have included this fact to complete the picture of Sabah in Malaysia.

"Another comparison is how much of federal revenues have been derived from Sabah including those paid at Kuala Lumpur compared with federal disbursements to Sabah. Federal revenues derived from Sabah are not just taxes and duties paid to federal agencies in Sabah. Sabah's contributions to the federal government include taxes and duties paid by companies doing business in Sabah but having its head offices in Kuala Lumpur and pay taxes and duties directly to the federal government. Banking, insurance and petroleum companies, FELDA and other big Malaya-based oil palm companies are some examples of companies making hundreds of millions profits per annum.

"The third principle of fairness is how much federal funds are disbursed to other states  and federal territories compared to the funds disbursed to the Borneo territories and the federal revenues from these Malayan states.

"The big picture includes unfair KL-centric policies such as the Cabotage policy which benefits Malaysian shippers at the expense of the Sabah economy and the granting of citizenships to unqualified foreigners in breach of the immigration power of Sabah promised in the Malaysia Agreement.

"Further damage to Sabahans are caused by the broken promise of Borneonisation of the public service that has resulted in 70% of this year's intake of PRIMARY SCHOOL teachers in Sabah coming from Malaya. It seems that after 51 years, Sabahans are still not qualified to be PRIMARY SCHOOL teachers.

"While Rahman said that the Prime Minister does not wake up in the morning thinking, how can I rob Sabah today, the Prime Minister should wake up each morning thinking how he can help Sabah each day. After all, without Sabah and Sarawak, he would not be Prime Minister," said Yong.