Political pundit: Decades of neglect leave Sarawak with little to share, even RM10 bln budget insufficient to catch up

Dato Peter Minos

By DayakDaily Team

KUCHING, Oct 29: Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad can no longer feign ignorance about the decades of neglect that Sarawak has endured, leading to significant disparities that not even a substantial annual budget of RM10 billion can adequately address.

Political pundit Dato Peter Minos criticised Dr Mahathir’s longstanding lack of support for Sarawak, noting that this sentiment has persisted both now and in the past.

He was hitting back at Dr Mahathir’s remarks suggesting that Sarawak, now classified as a high-income region, should share its wealth to help backward or poor Malaysian states to develop such as Kedah, which has a budget of only RM700 million.

In an interview with Free Malaysia Today (FMT) on Oct 28, Dr Mahathir asserted that Malaysia operates as a federation, and therefore, the wealthier states must share their resources with the poorer ones.

He emphasised that the  Federal government previously supported Sarawak and Sabah during their economically challenging times, and now that these states are no longer poor, it is time for them to extend support to the less affluent states.

However, Minos countered Dr Mahathir’s claims, reminding him that since joining Malaysia in 1963, Sarawak has been unjustly neglected and has much ground to recover.

Only under the leadership of Premier Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg has Sarawak managed to secure an annual budget exceeding RM10 billion.

“Yet, even this amount falls short of the investments needed for comprehensive development, let alone contributions to other states,” he said in a statement today.

Furthermore, Minos also reminded Dr Mahathir that over 90 per cent of the revenue from Sarawak’s oil and gas resources have been taken by national oil and gas company Petroliam Nasional Berhad (PETRONAS) to fund federal initiatives, predominantly benefiting Peninsular Malaysia.

“This has resulted in Sarawak receiving ‘peanuts’ of what it deserves. It is only recently that Sarawak has begun to see a slight increase in returns from its natural resources,” he said.

Since 2019, the Sarawak government has imposed a five per cent State Sales Tax (SST) on its oil and gas resources, collecting a cumulative RM15.8 billion between 2019 and 2023.

This achievement followed an intense legal battle between the Sarawak government and PETRONAS over the State’s rights to its resources.

Sarawak’s status as a high-income state was revealed in July, with the World Bank reporting a per capita gross national income of US$16,560 (approximately RM77,997).

However, despite this classification, World Bank economist Apurva Sanghi highlighted that Sarawak also faces a high poverty rate of 10.8 per cent in 2022, significantly higher than Perlis, which, despite not being a high-income state, recorded a poverty rate of only 4 per cent.

Given the decades of unfairness and inequity, Minos believes that rather than demanding that Sarawak share its limited resources, PETRONAS should allocate a greater portion of its earnings to help Sarawak build critical infrastructure.

“As a former Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir should acknowledge these realities. It would be in Dr Mahathir’s best interest to refrain from commenting on Sarawak, as doing so would prevent further exposure of his questionable intentions toward the State,” he added. — DayakDaily