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Saturday, October 11, 2014

National Budget neglects Sarawak

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak made no mention in his budget speech of the resolution by the Sarawak Assembly in May seeking a rise in the oil royalty from the present measly 5 per cent to a respectable 20 per cent.
sarawakKUCHING: The Democratic Action Party Sarawak (DAP) sees Budget 2015 neglecting the development agenda, continuing to leave Sarawak in the doldrums, while at the same time pampering the bloated civil service and underlining that political power would remain over-centralized.
“Only RM 50.5 billion, or 18.4 per cent, of the 2015 Budget goes for development expenditure,” said Kuching MP Chong Chieng Jen. “This is a very unhealthy lopsided Budget.”
He was expressing his unhappiness with Prime Minister and Finance Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s stewardship of the economy.
RM 223.44 billion, or 81.6 per cent, has been allocated for administrative expenditure because the civil service remains over-sized, he added. “This is a gross wastage of public funds with so many people on the government payroll.”
The Prime Minister’s Department, he stressed, continues to dwarf even the ministries on the development front with an allocation of RM 13.034 billion, while 22 ministries had to share the remaining RM 37.44 billion.
“This shows the extent of the over centralization of political power and financial resources in the position of the Prime Minister,” said Chong. “We are being robbed of money which could have otherwise gone into the development of much-needed infrastructure in Sarawak.”
He expressed great disappointment that Najib made no mention in his budget speech of the resolution by the Sarawak Assembly in May seeking a rise in the oil royalty from the present measly 5 per cent to a respectable 20 per cent. Chong had his motion on the matter turned down twice since June by the Speaker, the latest being earlier this week when Parliament resumed sitting on Tues.
He noted that Najib had mentioned the Pan Borneo Highway in his budget speech but left out crucial details like when works would begin and how long they would take.
The Budget 2015 allocates RM 27 billion for the Pan-Borneo Highway from Lundu in Sarawak to Tawau in Sabah. On the eve of the Budget, the Works Minister Fadillah Yusof disclosed that he was expecting at least RM 3 billion for the project.
PKR Sarawak vice chairman See Chee How, chipping in, lamented that the budget makes no mention of the RM 300 million a year in state sales and service tax which Sarawak would lose once the GST is introduced on April 1 next year.
“The Federal Government should reimburse the Sarawak Government this sum from the GST,” said See

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