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Monday, August 17, 2015

Jeffrey: The ball in Najib’s court on Full Autonomy

There must be no dispute on the term to be used as otherwise it would end in semantics, disagreements and broken promises.
Jeffrey-Kitingan,-najib,-sabah-and-sarawak
KOTA KINABALU: Bingkor assemblyman and longtime rights activist Jeffrey Kitingan thinks that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s promise of Full Autonomy for Sabah and Sarawak would remain a mere promise on paper unless concrete steps were taken to translate it into something practical. “So many promises have been made in the past to Sabah and Sarawak and most of them have been broken.”
In moving ahead, Jeffrey urged Najib to prepare a Cabinet paper on the Full Autonomy mentioned by Sarawak Chief Minister Adenan Satem and qualified by Najib in media statements as autonomy, more powers for Sabah and Sarawak, devolution and handing over control of certain Federal Departments in the two Borneo nations to locals and/or the control of the respective state governments. “The Cabinet paper should be approved by the Cabinet and presented to the Sabah and Sarawak assemblies for debate and endorsement.”
“Adenan said that under the Full Autonomy that he was seeking in line with the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63), the Federal Government should confine itself in Sabah and Sarawak to defence, internal security and foreign affairs only.”
Adenan further said, noted Jeffrey, that the Full Autonomy proposal would also be in line with the letter and spirit of MA63 which envisages the 1963 Arrangement as an Equal Partnership of Sabah, Sarawak and Malaya to be known as Malaysia. “The Federation mentioned in Article 160 of the Federal Constitution is not that in MA63 but one under the Federation of Malaya Agreement 1948 and reinforced by the Independence of Malaya Act 1957.”
The Star Sabah Chief urged the Prime Minister not to waste the goodwill that he has gained and built up in Sabah and Sarawak since 2009 despite facing a rough time in the peninsula on political funding and various other issues. “Najib’s fight for his political life will be lost if he loses Sabah and Sarawak as well. The ball is in his Court.”
Based on the reported statements by Adenan and Najib on the issue, added Jeffrey, there seems to be some confusion. “We need greater clarity on what we are talking about. The term used must be the same i.e. Full Autonomy. We don’t want to get into semantics by using other terms like mere autonomy, more powers, devolution and handing over control of certain Federal Government Departments.”
Jeffrey hopes that the Full Autonomy idea being currently floated in reported talks between the Chief Secretary and the Sarawak State Secretary was not an “election ploy” given that Sarawak would be going to the polls in mid-2016. “The Full Autonomy proposal must be implemented before the Sarawak state election and not held out as a carrot-and-stick to be implemented after the polls. If the latter is the case, it will end up as yet another broken promise and there will be serious repercussions come the 14th General Election in 2018.”
“The Federal Government’s non-compliance on the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) is already the Mother of All Broken Promises.”

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