Salleh lauds forum on formation of Malaysia

KOTA KINABALU - State Assembly Speaker Datuk Seri Salleh Said is of the opinion that the recent forum on ‘The Agreement to Formation of Malaysia 1963’ was a good approach as it provided the platform to discuss the Malaysia Agreement.

“To me, it’s a good idea as this kind of forum will allow non-partisan approach. If you want to talk about the Malaysia Agreement, you must not look at it from a political perspective,” he said.

Salleh who was met at a luncheon talk at University Malaysia Sabah (UMS) here yesterday, said this when asked to comment on Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman’s call for state leaders to put aside their political differences and put their heads together to look into the rights of Sabah as enshrined in the 20 Points, Malaysia Agreement and the Federal Constitution.

Anifah, who moderated the forum on Saturday at UMS, was of the opinion that currently, leaders in Sabah were all ‘speaking’ in individual voices.

“I have been observing all this while that Datuk Dr Jeffrey (Kitingan) has been very vocal about the 20 Points while former Chief Minister Datuk Yong Teck Lee is equally vocal about the issue of Borneonization.

“Then we have Ansari (Abdullah) on legal matters but we all have the same objective and that is to see Sabah develop on par with the other states in Peninsular Malaysia. We also want to ensure that our rights as provided for in the 20 Points, IGC, Malaysia Agreement 1963, and the Constitution have been met and fulfilled by the Federal Government,” Anifah stressed.

“If we continue to be divided with our own ideology politics, even till the end of the world will the problem remain unresolved. So it is my hope that this is the first step towards taking the initiative on the importance of putting aside out political differences and focus on the rights of Sabah which have yet to be given to us,” he said.

Salleh in response pointed out: “You must look at the Malaysia Agreement, the 18 Points from Sarawak, the 20 Points from Sabah and also the IGC report as well as the Constitution.

“We look into it and we enter into negotiations that is more important. If you don’t discuss this matter openly, then small groups of people will take the opportunity to find fault with both the federal and state governments,” he opined.

Salleh said he was happy to see that Anifah had stressed that we should set aside political differences in this issue so that negotiations could be done. He was equally happy to note that all agreed that there was a need to weed out and stop the efforts of those who want Sabah and Sarawak to secede from Malaysia.

He is confident that the federal government also welcomed such forums as it was done openly and with good intentions.

In his talk titled ‘Konflik dalam Organasasi’ earlier, Salleh in congratulating Anifah and his ministry for organizing the forum, said the unanimous decision was not to secede from Malaysia but to find ways to resolve the shortcomings and to do that, the relevant quarters must sit down and have a discussion.

“To me this is good development but we must look at it as if the rakyat wanted to be confrontational. We should look at how we can get what was promised to Sabah when Malaysia was formed,” he said.

Salleh pointed out that the situation before the formation of Malaysia and the situation now was totally different.

He also agreed that there was a need to see that the Sabah’s rights such as the 40 per cent under the Special Grants to Sabah under the Tenth Schedule Part IV Section 2(1) of the Federal Constitution be fulfilled but stressed that there was a need not to be too narrow minded about what was going on.

“To me Malaysia is a country that practises the federal system which has two main basis, decentralization and delegation of authority. Take for instance the case of SK Panimbawan — if there had been delegation of authority, then the project would have been implemented.

“But there was none which is why many issues have cropped up despite the project being approved and this resulted in the delay in implementation,” he said.