Devolution of powers: Committee awaiting details
KUCHING: The steering committee for devolution of powers between the federal government and state governments of Sarawak and Sabah is still waiting for details from the federal Attorney-General on legal and constitutional matters before it can proceed with the talks.
Its co-chairperson Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri said this was because some matters raised in the meeting with the technical committee three months ago needed to be relooked into and studied by the federal AG.
“We give them (federal AG’s office) time. Actually they ask for some time for them to look into the matters. But you talk about these states, the matters raised are not small but they have to look into the constitution and other laws as well.
“It’s quite complicated because this needs a lot of research. When you look at the constitution, it’s a big thing and when you look at the laws, there are many which require cross-reference. This will take a lot of time,” she said after officiating the Deepavali charity event organised by Indian Association of Kuching (IAK) here yesterday.
Nancy, who is also Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, nonetheless assured that the devolution talks were ongoing and there had not been any problems so far.
She pointed to the fact that devolution had already taken place at the administrative level among the agencies and departments without waiting for approval from the steering committee.
“If there are matters not needing legal amendments, not needing specific laws of its own, then there will not be many problems to implement it at the administrative level.
“Normally, difficulty to decide when coming to interpretation of law will delay the process,” she said.
She explained that once the matters had been finalised by the federal AG, the technical committee would bring it up to the steering committee in the next meeting.
For matters under power devolution talks which are political in nature, she said the committee will leave it to the Prime Minister and Chief Ministers of both Sabah and Sarawak to discuss and deliberate.
“We have made a stand, whereby if it is political in nature, then we will leave it to the Prime Minister and Chief Ministers of the two states,” she said.
On another matter, Nancy said the government was not taking lightly the case of a taxi driver who extorted RM950 from two Bangladeshi passengers for a 10km ride from KL Sental to Setapak which went viral recently on social media.
She said even though the victims were foreigners, it is possible that the same case could happen to locals.
She called on taxi drivers to be reasonable with their rates and use the meter when ferrying passengers, stressing that such cases will encourage consumers to go for e-hailing apps which enable them to know the cost of the trip beforehand.
“I call on passengers of taxis or even e-hailing providers, if they feel something is not right, it will be better if they report to authorities. We encourage e-hailing because you know the price of the trip, and you can choose not to take it (if you don’t agree with the price).
“For taxis, the driver should be using meter. Even if not using meter, the rate should be reasonable,” said Nancy, who oversees the Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD), and Sarawak and Sabah’s Commercial Vehicle Licensing Board.
SPAD, in a statement yesterday, revealed that the taxi driver who extorted the Bangladeshi passengers had already been detained, and the case is investigated under Section 75 of the Land Public Transport Act 2010.