Sarawak hopes tourism status talks with Putrajaya can be settled without court action

KUCHING (March 6): Sarawak hopes discussions with the federal government over the status of tourism can be resolved amicably without the need to bring the matter to court, said Dato Sri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah.

The Sarawak Minister of Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts said legal action would only be considered as a last resort if negotiations fail.

“The last resort, if we can’t resolve it, we will have to bring it to court. But we hope it will not come to that,” he told a press conference here on Friday.

Abdul Karim said Sabah and Sarawak are proposing that tourism be placed under the Concurrent List of the Federal Constitution so that the sector can be jointly managed by both the federal and state governments.

“What we are trying to do is to get tourism to be shared between the federal government and the state government,” he said.

He stressed that Sarawak is not seeking full control over tourism, but rather a shared responsibility with the federal government.

“We don’t want to take everything. We want to share it with the federal government,” he said.

According to him, the issue was among the matters discussed during a Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) meeting he attended in Kuala Lumpur recently.

Abdul Karim explained that tourism is currently placed under the Federal List following an amendment to the Federal Constitution in 1994.

“When MA63 was signed in 1963, they came up with the Federal List, the State List and the Concurrent List. At that time, tourism was not considered an important subject matter,” he said.

He noted that tourism was not initially viewed as a major economic sector.

“Nobody cared about tourism at that time. They didn’t see tourism as an industry that could generate a lot of money until later,” he said, adding that countries such as Thailand were among the earliest in Southeast Asia to capitalise on the sector.

Abdul Karim said Malaysia only began to recognise the economic potential of tourism years later, which eventually led to the 1994 constitutional amendment placing the sector under federal jurisdiction.

However, he pointed out that any amendment affecting the states should involve consultation with them and their consent.

“They made an amendment to the constitution and put tourism under the Federal List. Under the constitution, anything that affects the states must involve consultation with them and their consent must be given. It was not done in 1994,” he claimed.

He added that placing tourism under the Concurrent List would allow both the federal and state governments to jointly manage and develop the sector for the benefit of the country.