Give Sabah a share of Petronas’ RM30 bil payout to Putrajaya, says ex-minister

KOTA KINABALU - A former state minister believes Sabah should get a portion of the RM30 billion one-off special dividend from Petronas to the federal government.

Karanaan assemblyman Masidi Manjun said this was because half of the oil production came from the state.

“I hope the new state government can get a share of the special dividend because Sabah contributes 50% of the nation’s oil production

“This is a golden opportunity for us to ask (from Putrajaya) over and above the 5% oil royalty that we’ve been getting all this while.

“We hope the new administration can sit down with the federal government on how Sabah can benefit from this,” he said when debating the state budget today.

In tabling the federal budget, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng had announced that Petronas would give a one-off special dividend of RM30 billion to assist the country’s economy and cover the lack of revenue from other resources.

Masidi, the former state tourism, culture and environment minister, also said Sabah being the second highest earner in tourism receipts nationwide should get the full income from the tourism tax collection.

He suggested the federal government return the full amount of tourism tax collected from Sabah to the state so it could undertake its own projects to improve the tourism industry.
Former Sabah minister Masidi Manjun.

“There’s no doubt that Sabah’s tourism industry is booming but we are very sensitive to external factors that could turn on us at any time. We need to be prepared and the income from tourism tax can be used to back our industry,” he said.

He also said while Sabah enjoyed good business with plenty of Chinese tourists coming in, it was dangerous to be over dependent on visitors from China.

“High-end tourists have moved to other parts of the world now and we have the volume but not the spending power… that’s not good for us,” Masidi said.

Instead, Sabah should place attention on domestic tourists who, according to him, have as much spending power as Chinese visitors.

“The state government and local players should come up with special packages for Malaysian travellers,” he said.

Sabah is the second highest tourism tax earner, contributing RM4.53 million, after Kuala Lumpur which contributed RM16.6 million, since the tax was enforced in September last year.