KOTA KINABALU - “The federal government need to decentralize to empower the States and reduce power concentration at its centre and practice true federation not only to reflect the basis of the formation of Malaysia but to ensure the Federation continue to exist with stable federal-state relations” said Datuk Dr. Jeffrey Kitingan, STAR Sabah Chief, commenting on the spat between Penang MP Zairil and Utusan on federalism.
The federal government should stop its agenda of turning the Malaysian federation into a unitary state with concentration of power and money at Putrajaya.
“This concentration of power and money at Putrajaya has led to corruption, power abuse, unchecked and excessive spending as well as authoritarianism leaning towards a dictatorial regime and police state” added Dr. Jeffrey.
The people are awakening to this abuse and have begun to reject the Umno-led federal regime which ignores its other so-called component “partners” who are more like powerless hanger-ons.
We need to stop this absolute power at Putrajaya. As the saying goes, “Power Corrupts and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely”.
Even federal Ministers are getting arrogant and ignore the voice of the people who have elected them and even trample on the rights of the people and the States to the extent of ignoring the Federal Constitution.
For instance, under the 10th Schedule of the Federal Constitution, Sabah is supposed to get 40% of the net revenue collected from their States but gets nothing in reality. Meantime, Putrajaya gets fatter with more money to spend with these 40%. As a result, queues build up in Putrajaya for projects for these 40% revenues and the corruption merry-go-round begins to part-finance Umno’s political power game.
Instead of fully supporting the Sabah government as the sole authority in Sabah, the federal government have set up a parallel government machinery there with the Federal Secretary Office and its army of “civilian personnel” mainly brought in from Malaya.
“It is a subtle and covert form of colonialism with the top civil servants as its expatriates and the colonial masters in Putrajaya” opined Dr. Jeffrey.
The federal government needs to restore and practice true federation as agreed with the 11 States in Malaya in 1957 and to respect and restore the true Malaysian federation agreed with Sabah and Sarawak in 1963 and restore their autonomy and equal partners status.
The federal government must respect the components of the federation and not treat in particular the Borneo States as though they belong to Umno/Malaya and as if Sabah’s wealth and resources are private properties and exclusively managed by Umno.
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