KUCHING: The chief minister will announce the updates of the Petronas issues relating to oil and gas and State Sales Tax and not the one-third Parliamentary seat representation in September.
Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar clarified that he was not referring to the one-third Parliament representation as reported.
“I was asked regarding the discussion made with Petronas on the oil and gas and sales tax issue.
“To which I responded that we had to wait for the announcement by the chief minister or the prime minister as there were positive results after the discussions from both sides and they are expected to announce them in September,” he said in a statement today.
Wan Junaidi, who is also Santubong MP was referring to news reports by local dailies that the outcome of the one-third Parliament representation would be known in September.
In relation to the one-third representation of Parliamentary seat for Sarawak and Sabah, Wan Junaidi stated that this notion was not clearly mentioned in the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63).
“Even though it was mentioned in the Cobbold Commission Report and Inter-Governmental Committee Report and was reflected in the composition of parliamentary members in the year 1963 to 1965, when Singapore exited the Federation of Malaysia, the vacant seats were given to Malaya, not to Sabah and Sarawak. That is why we can see now that the parliamentary seats of Sabah and Sarawak are less than one-third in the Dewan Rakyat.
“I agree that the allocation of seats should be revised and acted upon now. We should understand that that there are parliamentary areas in Sarawak that are too big, for example the seat of Baram, which is bigger than the state of Pahang,” he said.
Wan Junaidi stated that these parliamentary areas should he considered for re-delineation so that more elected representatives would represent the people in the areas.
