Search This Blog

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Return our powers to Sarawak, says Adenan

We want the power taken by federal government to return to Sarawak, he says

SIBU - Sarawak Chief Minister Adenan Satem will meet Prime Minister, Najib Razak, on Wednesday to settle matters on devolution of power to the state government.

Announcing this here today, Adenan said Sarawak wanted the federal government to return the administrative powers it had taken away from the state government.

“We want the power to return to Sarawak,” he said, adding, “it was important to development for the people of Sarawak specifically rural residents”.

Adenan would also raise the issue of higher oil royalty payment to the state from the present five per cent.

He expected discussions to be tedious but expressed confidence that the federal government would be agreeable to the state’s requests.

To date, he said, the federal government had agreed not to issue deep sea fishing licences in the waters off Sarawak without referring to the state government.

The federal government had also agreed that 90 per cent of teachers in the state would comprise Sarawakians within the next three years, aside from awarding yearly Petronas contracts worth RM2.1 billion to companies in Sarawak.

Adenan said he had implemented 50 items in the two years he had been Chief Minister including doing away with toll, reducing power tariffs and building the Pan Borneo Highway.

He said Sarawak had been left behind in many things in the last 50 years and he wanted to overcome that. His focus is to develop the rural area and close the income disparity between the urban and rural areas.

Ahead of the coming state elections, he urged voters to “give me five more years”.

He said: “If you give me a big mandate (at the 11th state election), I can stand up to Kuala Lumpur and tell them what we want.”

The people of Sarawak could then judge him in the next five years. “If I am no good you can kick me out. I don’t intend to stay too long as I’ll be too old for the job,” he said, adding he was confident that the people of Sarawak knew what they had to do at the state election.
– BERNAMA

No comments:

Post a Comment