KUCHING: The 2020 Budget delivered by Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng yesterday is Malaya-centric, said Local Government and Housing Minister Datuk Dr Sim Kui Hian.
“It is a Malaya-centric budget with PH failing to keep their promise of 30 percent for Sabah and Sarawak and 20 percent oil and gas royalty to Sarawak.
“They failed in their duty to provide the necessary funds for Sarawak to be developed on par with Malaya,” Dr Sim said when asked to comment on the budget yesterday.
Lim announced yesterday that Sabah and Sarawak would receive RM5.2bil and RM4.4bil respectively in development expenditure next year. This comes to about 17 percent of the total development expenditure of RM56bil announced in Budget 2020.
In addition, Lim said the special grants under Article 112D of the Federal Constitution, which had not been reviewed since 1969, would be doubled to RM53.4 million for Sabah and RM32 million for Sarawak next year.
He said the federal government plans to double the rate again to RM106.8 million for Sabah and RM64 million for Sarawak within five years.
However Dr Sim said, Sarawak will just tengok sahaja (look only) as the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government failed to keep their promise to Sabah and Sarawak.
He added it was time for Putrajaya to give back the autonomy which included Sarawak’s rights as spelt out in the Malaysian Agreement 1963 (MA63) without further delay.
“So that Sarawak can get on with the necessary mammoth tasks ourselves immediately,” he said.
