Sabah leaders hit out at Ngeh’s ‘ungrateful’ statement

KOTA KINABALU - DAP’s Ngeh Koo Ham’s assertion in Parliament yesterday that Sabah and Sarawak were “ungrateful” for the money allocated in the 2020 Budget has earned the wrath of several Sabah leaders.

Former Sabah Chief Minister Yong Teck Lee said Ngeh was displaying the typical characteristics of a Peninsular Malaysia politician who feels he has the right to lord over Sabah and Sarawak.

“How dare he say Sabah and Sarawak are ungrateful when it is Malaya that should be very grateful for the resources and revenues that they took from us?” Yong told FMT.

“And now their leaders admit that if they pay the 20% oil royalties to Sabah and Sarawak, Petronas and Putrajaya will become bankrupt,” said Yong.

He said Putrajaya and Petronas had reaped 95% of the revenue generated from the oil and gas from both the East Malaysian states.

The Sabah Progressive Party president said “people like Ngeh and those in DAP” should learn to be grateful to Sabah and Sarawak as without the natural resources from these two states, the federal government and the national oil company will collapse.

“I remember that when I first met him (Ngeh) and the then Perak menteri besar (Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin) in late 2008, Ngeh said there were already too many MPs from Sabah and Sarawak and, therefore, there is no reason to add more MPs.

“That conversation with Ngeh, in the presence of the Perak MB, revealed to me that he was not sympathetic to the rights of Sabah and Sarawak.

“He said nothing of the Peninsular Malaysia leaders taking all the MP seats left by Singapore when it left Malaysia in 1965,” said Yong, pointing to the imbalance of power in Parliament.

The suggestion that the number of parliamentary seats in Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan FT should be increased to make up one-third of the 222 parliamentary seats is in line with Article 8 of the Federal Constitution.

Before Singapore left Malaysia, the number of MPs for Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah was 55 from 159 seats, which was equivalent to 34.6%, slightly more than the one-third requirement.

The number has gradually decreased to 25% now with the total number of MPs from Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan combined standing at 57 out of 222 MPs.

‘Irresponsible and misguided’

Parti Bersatu Sabah information chief Joniston Bangkuai described Ngeh’s statement as “irresponsible and misguided”.

“I wonder if his Sabah DAP colleagues agree with him. Sabah is probably more than 10 times bigger than Perak, hence the need for a much larger development fund than RM5.2 billion.

“Sabah only has 25 MPs but Perak, a state smaller than the Kinabatangan parliamentary constituency, has 24 MPs,” he said.

The Kiulu assemblyman said Ngeh should be informed of the size of Sabah, and must remind his party secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, who is the finance minister, to fulfil Pakatan Harapan’s pre-election pledge to return 50% of the revenue collected from Sabah and grant 20% oil royalty.

He said Ngeh should not have belittled Sabah’s right to have more development funds from Putrajaya.

He added that a higher allocation for the state is in line with the Shared Prosperity Vision of Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

“Typical of a peninsula MP ignorant of Sabah’s needs, Ngeh seems to be hell-bent on seeing Sabah continue to lag behind,” he said.

Towards this end, Bangkuai also reminded Ngeh that it was in the Pakatan Harapan election manifesto (Promise No. 42) that 30% of the development budget should be allocated for Sabah and Sarawak.

Penampang MP Darell Leiking echoed what the Sabah Chief Minister Mohd Shafie Apdal had said over the budget, adding that the state is “actually, grateful for the budget allocated for Sabah, but the funds allocated are not enough due to the size of Sabah”.

Sabah DAP secretary Chan Foong Hin, who is also Kota Kinabalu MP, said he had met Ngeh over the statement and Ngeh told him he had been misquoted.

Chan said Ngeh told him that other development funds, allocated for general purposes, would also benefit Sabah and Sarawak.

In the 2020 Budget, Putrajaya announced that Sabah and Sarawak would receive RM5.2 billion and RM4.4 billion respectively in development expenditure next year, about 17% of the total development expenditure of RM56 billion.

Ngeh, who is Beruas MP, while debating the 2020 Budget, was reported to have said that if Perak was given any of these two amounts, the people of Perak would be grateful.

“It looks like the opposition parties in Sabah and Sarawak are ungrateful even though the amount is huge,” Ngeh told the Dewan Rakyat.